".y* Study of a Feature of Sixteenth Century 
Conventionalism as it iR.evea1s Itself in 
tlo/insned s Cnronicle 




fRJ 



A THESIS 

Presented 

For the Degree of Doctor of Pkilosopky 

to 

The Faculty or Arts and Sciences 

of 

Cornell University 



\tprj 

..:. 



CHRISTABEL FORSYTH FISKE 



A STUDY OF A FEATURE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

CONVENTIONALISM AS IT REVEALS ITSELF 

IN HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLE 



A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY FOR THE DECREE 

OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

CHRISTABEL FORSYTH FISKE 



Reprinted Irom the Journal ol English and Germanic 

Philology. 1910. p 356-403, 525-563 



BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS 

1910 






i ccbengre 

iv 



i 



*SJ 



M 
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3: 

la 



IN LOVING MEMORY 

OF 

MY MOTHER 

ELIZABETH WORTHINGTON FISKE 



if ' 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter. 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

Conclusion. 



Balph Holinshed. 

Holinshed's Provincialism. 

Holinshed's King-worship. 

Holinshed's Contempt for the Common People. 

Holinshed's Depreciation of Women. 

Holinshed's Beligious Opinion. 

Holinshed's Fondness for Trite Moralizing; its sig- 
nificance; his Lack of Humor. 

Holinshed's Treatment of Sensational Manifestations 
of Criminality. 

Holinshed's Attitude Toward Witchcraft and Magic. 



PKEFACE. 

The evolution of the present work is curious enough to 
warrant a prefatory word of explanation concerning the rela- 
tion between the Elizabethan Drama and my subject. 

The reading of Mr. Boswell-Stone's "Shakespeare's Holin- 
shed" suggested to me the possibility of a similar study of 
Holinshed's relation to the non-Shakespearean historical plays. 
To my great surprise, however, I soon found myself interested 
in The Chronicle for the Chronicler's own sake, first as 
representative of a large class of people in every age of the 
world; second, as representative of this class in relation to the 
special problems of the Elizabethan age. Obviously in such 
a study the drama, from certain points of view so intimately 
connected with the Chronicle, has fallen into distinctly second 
place, and will be used merely either to illustrate or to sup- 
plement or to enforce by contrast the points I would make con- 
cerning the Chronicler. 

In this connection I would take occasion to say that I 
have used freely the suggestions made in various studies of 
Elizabethan Drama by Mir. Felix Schelling, Mr. Algernon 
Charles Swinburne, Mr. John Addington Symonds, Mr. A. W. 
Ward, Mr. Hans Wagner Singer, Mr. W. G. Boswell-Stone 
and other writers whose services I gratefully acknowledge. 

It remains for me to express my gratitude to Professor 
James Morgan Hart of Cornell University for illuminating 
advice and criticism; and to Professor George Lincoln Burr, 
also of Cornell University, whose instruction has furnished 
me with the historical data necessary for the prosecution of 
the present study. 



\ 



* 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 



CONVENTIONALISM IN HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLE. 

Chapter I. 

RALPH HOLINSHED. 

One who glances carefully through the first volume of Holin- 
shed's Chronicle, 1 undaunted by page after page of dry topo- 
graphical detail, will not fail, at last, to be struck by the impres- 
sion he gets of a fair and fertile country, well-wooded and well- 
watered, a pleasant place wherein it is good to dwell. The 
language at times grows quaint and picturesque, giving us vivid 
glimpses of hill and forest, and making the rivers, especially, 
seem almost living creatures; such rivers, for instance, as the 
energetic little Boscastell, which, "but a small thing, running at 
the most not above two miles into the land, yet .... passeth by 
foure townes"; 2 or the friendly Frome which, on its course to 
the sea, "whither all waters by nature doo resort", "receiveth 
[here] a pretie brooke descending from Frome Selwood west of 
Braokleie;. . . .joineth [there] with a rill rising by north from 
Litleton drue"; hasting to Coston "taketh in. . . . [another] by 
the waie from Markesburie. . . .and. . . .meeteth with. . . . [an- 
other] .... soone west of Northstocke". 8 The aspect of the land 
is, for the most part, sunny and peaceful; yet we grow grad- 
ually aware of uncanny places, where the peasant halts and holds 
his breath. There is the "well in the forrest of Gnaresborow, 
. . . .which water, beside that it is cold as Stix, in a certeine 
period of time knowne, converteth wood, flesh, leaves of trees, 
and mosse into hard stone, without alteration or changing of 
shape" ; 4 and the "little rockie He in Aber Barrie .... which 
hath a rift or clif t next the first shore ; whereunto if a man doo 
laie his eare, he shall heare such noises as are commonlie made 

1 The edition referred to is the London edition of 1807. 

2 Hoi. I. 111. 

3 Hoi. I. 116. 
* Hoi. I. 218. 



8 Fishe. 

in smiths forges"; 5 and we have also the two lakes in Snow- 
donie, "whereof one beareth a moovable Hand, which is carried 
to and fro as the wind bloweth". 6 Thus there is gradually 
evolved for us, if we have time and patience to distinguish its 
elements from masses of unsuggestive material, a fresh and 
fascinating landscape which, aloof from the smoke of modern 
train or factory, is shadowed only by the superstitious spirit 
that filled its solitary places, as in the time of Beowulf, with 
monsters and with marvels. 

The experience described in the foregoing lines is typical. 
Just as from the dry geographical data one reconstructs a dis- 
tinct and characteristic landscape, so, in reading on through the 
massive volumes of the Chronicle, one becomes more and more 
conscious of a personality informing and vivifying, for the 
patient and sympathetic reader, pages that at first seem mere 
dusty, pompous accounts of royal births, marriages, and deaths; 
of municipal affairs with their network of intrigue and corrup- 
tion; of foreign alliances and treaties; of monotonous, savage 
campaigns domestic and foreign. At the outset, one does not 
realize this vitalizing force as a personality. The slow-evolving 
charm seems to lie merely in the accidental embodiment of cer- 
tain floating notions concerning the religion, politics, and 
domestic life of the day, notions that pique and interest the 
modern mind by resemblance to, and difference from, our own. 
But one finds, at last, these floating notions gathering them- 
selves together, cohering, uniting, gradually assuming form and 
consistency, as elements in a more and more clearly defined per- 
sonality. This personality is that of the Chronicler himself, 
Ralph Holinshed, concerning whom Sidney Lee, in "The 
Dictionary of National Biography," briefly remarks, "All that 
seems certain is that he came to London early in Elizabeth's 
reign and obtained employment as a translator in the office of 
Reginald Wolfe." So much, or so little, for biographical data. 
Yet Ralph Holinshed must have been, first and last, a man who, 

b Hoi. I. 217. 

"Hoi. I. 217-8. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 9 

in an age of upheaval, was singularly untouched by the tur- 
moil of contemporary opinion. He seems to have lived in an at- 
mosphere of tradition, even of hereditary convention; to have 
been a scholarly recluse untouched by newer lights. Sometimes, 
not often, he betrays recognition of a new point of view. But 
this recognition leads, apparently, to so little of the active, in- 
tellectual deliberation which marks alike enlightened conserv- 
atism and enlightened radicalism, that we can scarcely apply 
the term Conservatism to Holinshed's persistent adherence to 
the traditional view. By the term Conventionalism, therefore, 
we have chosen to designate the subject of our study. 

It may be interesting to consider for a moment the process 
of self-revelation by which our Chronicler has enabled us to form 
our impression of him. Intent as he is upon giving us merely 
an account of the history of England, "beginning at Duke 
William the Norman, commonlie called The Conqueror; and 
descending by degrees of yeeres to all the kings and queenes of 
England in their orderlie successions", 7 his self-betrayal is quite 
spontaneous and unconscious. It comes sometimes through the 
mere emphasis he throws on certain features of the incident he is 
describing; or through spontaneous exclamations scattered here 
and there; or, most frequently, through his liability to stray 
away from the matter in hand into digressions more or less sig- 
nificant. He is aware of this tendency to digress, a tendency 
which, though he deprecates, he cannot resist. "But whither am 
I so suddenlie digressed?" 8 or "Whither am I slipped?" 8 " are 
favorite expressions by which he calls us back to the question in 
hand. Sometimes he diversifies his apologetic formula by giving 
to it a figurative turn. "But how farre have I waded in this 
point, or how farre may I sail in such a large sea?" 9 or "But 
how am I fallen from the market into the alehouse?" 10 or 
"But whither am I digressed, from lead unto crowes, & from 

i Hoi. Title Page, Vol. III. 
s Hoi. I. 343. 
8a Hol. I. 281. 
» Hoi. I. 276. 
io Hoi. L 340. 



10 Fishe. 

crowes unto divels?" 11 Not only are these digressions interest- 
ing in themselves, but they are valuable hints for the study of 
the Chronicler's character. 

So much, then, for Holinshed in general. It now remains to 
present in systematic classification all the data upon which a 
just estimate of his personality may be founded. 

Chapter II. 
holinshed's provincialism. 

The characteristic of our Chronicler which we will first notice 
is his stolid, insular spirit, a spirit evinced very strikingly in his 
treatment of the French, the Scotch, the Welsh, and the 
Irish. This provincialism is especially evident in his dealing 
with the French. 

The iinglo-French wars occupy, of course, the chief place in 
the Chronicle controversies. From first to last, war follows war 
in monotonous sequence. The causes are mainly two: first, 
quarrels over the possession of Normandy, Aquitaine, Anjou, 
Poictou, and Maine; second, English claims to the French 
throne through Edward the Third's descent from Isabella the 
Fair. The relations between the two countries resolve them- 
selves, for the most part, into dreary interchanges of challenge 
and counter-challenge, the claims of France to the suzerainty 
of English provinces on her soil being met by the claim of Eng- 
land to the suzerainty of France herself. 

Deep-rooted racial antipathy smoulders forever, in Holin- 
shed, round the fuel afforded by these two never-ending disputes. 
We grow weary of the constant friction, the mutual bluster, the 
war begun, continued, and ended to the glory of the English and 
the humiliation of the French. The force of his racial prejudice 
reaches its climax in the contrasted figures of the English and 
the French monarchs. With amusing consistency, magnanimous 
Edwards and Henrys are thrown effectively against a back- 
ground of perfidious Philips and Lewises. The French king ever 

11 Hoi. I. 400. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 11 

hovers on the horizon, hostile and alert, his eye fixed greedily 
on the tempting little island; setting royal son against father, 
princely brother against brother, siding now with young Arthur, 
now with the Pope. In contrast with this cunning "fox", lla the 
English monarch is conceived of as a curious mixture of the lion 
and the lamb. Very valiant he is, of course; but also an ex- 
traordinarily simple-minded, not to say stupid, person, who in 
spite of various unpleasant experiences continues, like Edward 
the Fourth, in the persuasion "that the sunne should have fallen 
from his circle, [sooner] than that the French king would 
have dissembled or broken promise with him."" 

The constant clash of arms is broken at times, it is true, by 
brief seasons of peace and amity. The French king's obstinate 
malice occasionally gives way, and it is pleasing to read that in 
1255 King Lewis of France sent to King Henry "an elephant, 
a beast most strange and woonderfull to the English people", 
and also "an ewer of pearle like to a peacocke in forme and 
fashion, garnished most richlie with gold, silver, and saphires". 1 ' 1 
The Black Prince's treatment of his royal captive, King John 
of France, is exquisite in its delicate chivalry. 14 There is also 
a delightful description of the manner in which, at the Peace of 
Amiens, the English and the French soldiers feasted amicably 
together, the French king having sent into the English armie "a 
hundred carts of the best wine that could be gotten", thus mak- 
ing them "good cheere. . . .of his owne costs." 15 

Turning to the historical drama, to be used merely as 
furnishing supplementary or illustrative data, we find it re- 
producing faithfully enough the motives and incidents of the 
various wars, its main object being to represent literally before 

118 Hoi. III. 336. 

12 Hoi. III. 348. 

13 Hoi. II. 435. 

14 Hoi. II. 668. 
is Hoi. III. 338. 



12 FisTce. 

our eyes the events of a reign from beginning to end. 16 The 
plays differ from their chronicle-source in this fact : that into the 
relations of the French and the English there has entered not 
one gleam of grace or amenity. It is strange that the dramatists 
should not have seized the opportunity, so strikingly suggested, 
of lightening their monotony of insult and brute force. The 
story of the French wars, as treated by our playwrights, is stupid 
enough reading. Kings and ambassadors exchange an endless 
amount of braggadocio and bluster, and then fall to their bloody 
work. The most signal instance of this blindness to the notion 
of international courtesy as an effective dramatic motive is the 
episode already referred to where, in "Edward the Third," the 
Black Prince captures King John of France. 17 Instead of the 
quaint, respectful homage which, in the Chronicle, the boy pays 
to his royal prisoner, we have here a callow insolence that re- 
minds us of Gratiano's treatment of Shylock in "The Merchant 
of Venice." The dramatists seem, indeed, systematically to have 
shut their eyes to any chance of varying their row of wax-works. 
Take, for instance, the little herald who, the Chronicler tells us, 
was sent by Lewis to Edward the Fourth when the latter landed 
in France in 1474. He was a mere yeoman whom the king 
"caused .... to be put in a coat of armour of France, which for 
hast was made of a trumpet baner. For king Lewes was a man 
nothing precise in outward shewes of honor". 13 Yet he de- 
livers his oration with such "boldnesse of face and libertie of 
toong", talking so sensibly and picturesquely about how the 
French and English ought to cleave together as "fine Steele .... 
to the adamant stone", that King Edward is charmed with him, 
"highlie" commending "his audacitie, his toong, and his 
sobernesse, giving to him .... a f aire gilt cup, with a hundred 

is I would say that in regard to the plays I have used freely the sug- 
gestions made in various studies of the Elizabethan drama by Mr. Felix 
Sehelling, Mr. Algernon Charles Swinburne, Mr. John Addington 
Symonds, Mr. A. W. Ward, Mr. W. G. Bos well- Stone, and other writers, 
whose services are gratefully acknowledged. 

17 Compare Hoi. II. 668 with "Edward the Third", Act IV, Sc. 7, 
11. 1-9. 



r 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 13 

angels", and sending him gaily off arm in arm with an English 
herald presumably dressed in conventional garb. 18 Turning to 
"Edward the Fourth", we look in vain for our lively little friend. 
He is transformed, alas, into a gentleman and a scholar named 
Mugeroun, and takes his place in line with all his dull prede- 
cessors. Heywood has also entirely neglected, in this play, the 
comic possibilities of the Constable of France, who becomes an 
ordinary stock- villain ; while in the Chronicle he is a picturesque 
person, a kind of development of the Morality Vice, who alter- 
nately rails at King Edward and hurls chairs 18 " around in a 
manner that would have delighted an Elizabethan audience. 

The drama, then, furnishes interesting supplementary evi- 
dence concerning the uncompromising hatred for the French 
that we find in the Chronicle, differing only from the Chronicle 
in the fact that into its pages there enters not a gleam of 
friendly intercourse between the two nations such as lends, now 
and then, to Holinshed's chapters of war and carnage, a gracious 
charm almost redeeming them from dullness. 

The Scotch, at the hands of the Chronicler, fare even worse 
than the French. He does, indeed, grudgingly admit their 
courage, but only that he may impugn their motives. "For 
albeit that the Scots have beene often and verie greevouslie over- 
come by the force of our nation", he says, "it hath not beene for 
want of manhood on their parts, but through the mercie of God 
shewed on us, and his justice upon them, sith they alwaies have 
begun the quarels, and offered us meere injurie with great 
despite and crueltie". 19 

It is noticeable in Holinshed's Chronicle that, when his per- 
sonal feeling gets the better of the writer, the marginal notes 
abandon their legitimate function of summarizing the text, or 
referring us to sources. This is especially evident when he deals 
with the Scotch or the Catholics. From the time of the first 
recorded foray of the Scotch over the English border, to the un- 

"Hol. III. 332-4. 

184 Hoi. III. 336. 

19 Hoi. I. 192. 



14 Fishe. 

ion of the kingdoms under James, the history of the Scotch is 
accompanied by a running comment of exclamations: "Scotch 
honestie", 194 (sarcastically). "Oh, Scotish crueltie and more than 
barbarous bloudthirstinesse." 19 " Their ferocity in border warfare 
is described as unspeakable, a certain raid in John's time, when 
they spared not even women in childbirth, 190 being made an al- 
most standing example in the Chronicle accounts. As for their 
honor, — after glossing a piece of double dealing by the side- 
note, "This is a common fault in the Scots", he comments as 
follows : "Thus did they by practise justifie the opinion that 
strangers to them have long conceived of their dealing : . . . . and 
which he saw full well that said of the Scotish nations un- 
trustinesse, etc. ; 

grave pectus abundat 

Fraudibus ingenitis & non eget arte magistra." 19d 

In the plays the Scotch are, like the marginal epithets, mere 
abstract qualities, "Cruelty," "Dissimulation," etc., expanded, 
of course, dramatically. They appear in two of our plays, 
"Edward the First" and "Edward the Third," on each occasion 
in alliance with the French, a historical fact that suggests the 
comment in the Chronicle, "For where should the Scots lerne 
policie and skill to defend themselves, if they had not their 
bringing up and training in France? If the French pensions 
mainteined not the Scotish nobilitie, in what case should they 
be? Then take awaie France, and the Scots will soone be 
tamed; France being to Scotland the same that the sap is to 
the tree, which, being taken awaie, the tree must needs die and 
wither." 20 Their first appearance in the plays marks the be- 
ginning of that interchange of service against the English that 
distinguishes the relations of the French and the Scotch till the 

10a Hol. IV. 246. 

19b Hol. II. 797. 

19c Hoi. II. 554. 

J " a Hol. IV. 246. 

20 Hoi. TIT. 66. 



I 



i 



Conventionalism in Ilolinshed's Chronicle. 15 

anion of the English and the Scotch crowns. This first ap- 
pearance is in "Edward the First," where the three claimants 
to the Scotch throne, raised up by the death of the "little Maid 
of Norway," appear dutifully before Edward the First, as their 
liege lord, that he may settle the question. He decides for 
Balliol. It is characteristic of the prepossessions of the play- 
wright that, in one part of the play, the motive for Balliol's 
rebellion (namely, the exaction of certain humiliating feudal 
services), is completely suppressed, and he is represented merely 
as ungrateful and over-ambitions. The second appearance of 
the Scotch is in "Edward the Third," where King David and 
his army are besieging the Countess of Salisbury in Boxburgh 
Castle. The Scotch nation is derided in the lady's opening 
soliloquy. They even woo "with broad untuned oaths", she says ; 
and, if the English army does not arrive in time, their conquest 
over a woman will be brayed forth "in vild, uncivil, skipping 
jigs". The tone throughout is even more insulting and con- 
temptuous than that of the Chronicle. Holinshed admits, at 
least, their bravery, treacherous, savage villains though they be; 
but in our plays the gallant little nation appears only as an 
army of feeble-minded phantoms, flocking and gibbering in the 
wake of the French army. 

We find, also, in the Chronicle significant dealing with the 
English wars waged against that other gallant little nation, the 
Welsh, in whose fiery heart burned on forever the dream of King 
Arthur who should one day come to deliver it from the op- 
pressor. It is interesting to compare Holinshed's tone with both 
that of modern history and that of glowing Welsh tradition. 
Turning to the Welsh bard, we find as we might expect a 
rhapsodic ecstacy of praise. Luellan ap Jorwerth is "the Eagle 
of men that loves not to lie nor sleep," the hero "towering 
above the rest of men with his long red lance, [whose] red hel- 
met of battle [was] crested with the fierce wolf." "The sound 
of his coming," we read, "is like the roar of the wave as it 
rushes to the shore, that can neither be stayed nor hushed." 
Yet he is gentle, too, and "pours his gold into the lap of the 



16 Fishe. ( 

bard as the ripe fruit falls off the trees." 21 The most notable 
eulogy of his grandson Luellan is found in a fine ode on his 
death by Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Coch, 21 * who runs into wildest 
riot of hyperbole. 

Turning away from this poetic rapture to the Welsh Chron- 
icler, we find him exalting these men with quaint and sober 
praise. "And thus", we read, "in the ensuing year, Maredudd, 
son of Gruffudd, son of Rhys, the king of Ceredigion and the 
Vale of Tywi and Dyved, died in the twenty-fifth year of his 
age, a man who was extremely compassionate to the poor, and 
of noble prowess against his enemies, and rich in righteous- 
ness." 22 Again, "One thousand two hundred and forty was the 
year of Christ when Llywelyn, son of Jorwerth, Prince of 
Wales, died, the man whose good works it would be difficult to 
enumerate," 22 * Again, "And then a year after that, the battle of 
Pwll Gwdyg took place, when Trahaiarn, king of Gwynedd, pre- 
vailed, and, by the grace of God, avenged the blood of Bleddyn, 
son of Cynoyn, who was the mildest and most merciful of the 
kings, and would injure no one unless offended, and when of- 
fended it was against his will that he then avenged the offense. 
He was gentle to his relations, and was the defender of the 
orphans, the helpless, and widows, was the supporter of the 
wise, the honor and stay of the churches, and the comfort of 
the countries; generous to all, terrible in war, and amiable 
in peace, and a defense to everyone." 22 " 

Glancing away from the patriotic approval of Welsh bard 
and Welsh Chronicler, we dip into the pages of a modern his- 
torian to steady our judgment before abandoning ourselves to 
Holinshed. We find there a soberly-told story of the three 
gallant little Welsh states which long kept up the unequal 

21 This collection of quotations was taken from Green's "History of 
the English People" (Harper & Brothers, 1879), bk. Ill, ch. Ill, p. 288. 

^Jones's "Bardic Museum" (London, 1802), p. 42. 

22 Brut Y Tywysogion (London: Longman and Green, 1860), p. 183. 

a2a Brut Y Tywsogion, p. 327. 

22b Brut Y Tywysogion, p. 49. 



Conventionalism in HolinshecVs Chronicle. 17 

struggle against the Saxon invader. Gradually the Mercians 
tore away tract after tract till there was left only a flaming core 
of what had been the British nation, the land that is now modern 
Wales. For six centuries or thereabouts it preserved itself, save 
for an occasional feudal pledge, a separate nation. Welsh his- 
tory for these six centuries forms a thrilling story. Again and 
again the country was on the point of utter subjugation; again 
and again, just at the critical point, the nation in the energy of 
despair turned back the tide of invasion. Hero after hero 
arose to the succor of his country, the favorite being Luellan ap 
Jorwerth. From him sprang two sons; the elder, though the 
popular candidate, was set aside on the ground of illegitimacy, 
the younger son, David, succeeding to the throne. At his death 
the throne fell to the illegitimate branch of the family, which 
had three sons, Luellan, Owen, and David. Luellan succeeded 
to the throne, "the last and to the Englishman the most illus- 
trious of the long line of Welsh princes." This Luellan, in all 
ways worthy of his renowned grandfather, had been for Edward 
the First an antagonist against whom that energetic monarch 
had been obliged to use his utmost force and strategy. But, 
despite his efforts, the English king wrested away the land piece 
by piece, till only the cantrefs constituting Snowdonia were left 
to Luellan's heirs. The chains now formally riveted on Wales, 
the king's bailiffs were left to their own pleasure; and to 
Luellan's ears, in his seclusion in Snowdonia, came cries of dis- 
tress and indignation. For the last time he roused himself. 
Never was there a more gallant or a more hopeless fight. In the 
end, his head was fixed upon the point of a lance and carried 
triumphantly through the streets of London to the gate of the 
Tower. 23 

Throughout this impartial story, we feel the writer's thrill 
of sympathy and admiration for the long line of Welsh heroes 
of whom Luellan is the type. Turning now to Holinshed, we 
are surprised at their figures as they meet us in his pages. Of 
the magnanimity that thrills at the gallantry of a foe, one of the 

21 Summarized from Green's "History of The English People." 



18 FisJce. 

few creditable sensations distinguishing human beings in war, 
we find not a trace. The motives of the Welsh leaders are will- 
fully misconstrued. We read, "Leolin. . . .being summoned to 
come to a parlement holden by King Edward, .... disdained to 
obeie, and upon a verie spite began to make newe warre to the 
Englishmen, in wasting and destroieng the countrie". 24 The 
politic concessions made to him by Edward are constantly dwelt 
upon as fatherly benevolences, with the evident intention of 
making Luellan appear a monster of ingratitude. He acts thus 
and so, says the Chronicler, "notwithstanding king Edward had 
so manie waies doone him good, and had given him just cause 
of thankfulnesse, which is the common reward of benefits, and 
which little recompense whoso neglecteth to make, being but a 
little lip-labour, Non est laudari dignus, nee dignus amari." 25 
Some times the racial dislike expresses itself in mere spitefulness. 
On one occassion we read that "Leolin nothing dismaied, ther- 
with. . . .began foorthwith to rob and spoile within the English 
marshes with paganish extremitie". 26 The word "paganish" is 
gratuitously spiteful. 

If the Chronicle slanders the gallant Welsh hero by making 
him brutal, malicious, and ungrateful, we find in Peele's play, 
"Edward the First", an even more sadly distorted conception. 
Here provincial prejudice has done its worst. We find Luellan 
an absolutely graceless figure, — boaster, masquerader, trickster 
combined. He and his companion, the buffoon-harper, are re~ 
spectively as complete travesties of brave prince and inspired 
bard as can possibly be conceived. 

The Chronicler's attitude towards the Irish can, of course, 
be easily divined. The English are represented as perfectly 
just and benevolent rulers whom the Irish cannot endure be- 
cause of "their corrupt nature", 27 their "inconstant. . . .mind", 28 

24 Hoi. II. 482. 

25 Hoi. II. 482. 

26 Hoi. II. 369. 

27 Hoi. VI. 404. 

28 Hoi. VI. 231. 



Conventionalism in Holinslied's Chronicle. 19 

and because they are entirely "false by kind". 20 "Wherefore", 
we read conerning one of the governors, "great good cause had 
he to be glad and joifull, that he was to be delivered from so un- 
gratfull a people and unthankfull a nation.... It is a fatall 
and an inevitable destinie incident to that nation, that they can- 
not brooke anie English governor; for be he never so just, 
upright, & carefull for their benefit, they care not for it; let 
him be never so beneficiall to their commonwealth, they account 
not of it ; let him be never so circumspect in his governement and 
advised in his dooings, they will discredit and impeach it. If he 
be courteous and gentle, then like a sort of nettles they will 
sting him; if he be severe, they will cursse him; and let him 
doo the best he can, he shall never avoid nor escape their malice 
and spite." 3C The writer has his own theory concerning the un- 
happy peasants living on "limpets, orewads, and such shelfish 
as they could find". There is no suspicion in his mind that they 
may be victims of treacherous climate and oppressive masters. 
"The land it selfe", he says, "... .before. . . .populous, well in- 
habited, and rich in all the good blessings of God, being plent- 
ious of corne, full of cattell, well stored with fish and sundrie 
other good commodities, is now become wast and barren, yeeld- 
ing no fruits, the pastures no cattell, the fields no corne, the aire 
no birds, the seas (though full of fish) yet to them yeelding 
nothing. . . .A heavie, but a just judgement of God upon such a 
Pharoicall and stifnecked people, who by no persuasions, no 
counsels, and no reasons, w x ould be reclamed and reduced to 
serve God in true religion, and to obeie their most lawfull prince 
in dutifull obedience; but made choise of a wicked idoll, the 
god Mazim to honor, and of that wicked antichrist of Eome to 
obeie, unto the utter overthrow of themselves and of their pos- 
teritie. This is the goodnesse that commeth from that great 
citie upon the seven hils, and that mightie Babylon, the mother 
of all wickednesse & abhominations upon the earth. These be 
the fruits which come from that holie father, maister pope, the 

29 Hoi. VI. 265. 
80 Hoi. VI. 404-5. 



20 FisTce. 

sonne of sathan, and the man of sinne, and the enimie unto 
the crosse of Christ, whose bloodthirstinesse will never be 
quenched, but in the blood of the saints, and the servants of 
God; and whose ravening guts be never satisfied, but with the 
death of such as doo serve the Lord in all godlines, .... as it 
dooth appeare by the infinit & most horrible massacres, and 
bloodie persecutions, which he dailie exerciseth throughout all 
christian lands." 81 

In his attitude towards all these nations, then, Holinshed 
strikingly exemplifies the force of provincial prejudice. He is 
apparently quite incapable of comprehending that another man's 
view may be tenable; or that truth, honor, and magnanimity 
can possibly exist in any nation hostile to the English. 

Chapter III. 
holinshed's king-worship. 

We will consider in the next two chapters respectively the 
spirit displayed by Holinshed towards the king and his entour- 
age, and towards the common people. 

The Chronicler's interest lies wholely with the chiefs and the 
nobles, in whose achievements consist those "manifold matters of 
recreation, policie, adventures, [and] chivalrie", 82 which Holin- 
shed considers it his duty to record. We watch king and knight 
sweeping gloriously across the channel to victory in France, and 
witness their triumphant return through "streets. . . .hanged with 
rich cloths of silke, arras, and tapestrie, .... [whose] conduits 
ran plentifullie with white wine and red." 38 This glittering fig- 
ure of the knight it is, whether in silk or armor, that fascinates 
our writer; and only now and then does he turn aside to sketch 
hastily the peasant as he steals out from the gate of some sacked 
town^ one of a pathetic group "with heavie hearts, (God wot)", 

3i Hoi. VI. 460. 
32 Hoi. IV. 342. 
88 Hoi. II. 479. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 21 

"parents with their children, yoong maids and old folke", 31 or 
sweats wearily beneath the burden of crushing taxation. 35 

The first evidence of the Chronicler's devotion to royalty and 
its satellites is his almost passionate interest in its pomps and 
festivities. This propensity is somewhat amusing, considering 
the manner in which in one place he disclaims interest in any 
such vanities. "I could also set downe", he says, "what a goodlie 
sight it is to see them muster in the court, which being filled 
with them dooth yeeld the contemplation of a noble varietie unto 
the beholder, much like to the shew of the pecocks taile in the 
full beautie, or of some medow garnished with infinit kinds and 
diversitie of pleasant floures. But I passe over the rehearsall 
hereof to other men, who more delite in vaine amplification 
than I, and seeke to be more curious in these points than I pro- 
fesse to be." 3e Nevertheless, he lays unreservedly open to us 
the life of the court with its fetes, its balls, its festivals. 

The interior of the palaces is described in lavish detail, the 
Chronicler revelling in gorgeous tapestries and hangings. We 
read of chambers "large, and wellproportioned, to receive light 
and aire at pleasure : the roofes of them from place to place, and 
chamber to chamber, sieled, and covered with cloth of silke, of 
the most f aire and quicke invention that before time was seene ; 
.... the ground .... whiteingraild, embowed, and batoned with 
rich clothes of silkes, knit and fret with cuts and braids, and 
sundrie new casts, that the same clothes of silke shewed like 
bullions of fine burned gold"; and of other chambers in the 
same palace, wherein "hanged rich & marvelous clothes of arras 
wrought of gold and silke, compassed of manie ancient stories, 
with which clothes of arras everie wall and chamber were hanged 
and all the windowes so richlie covered, that it passed all other 
sights before seene. In everie chamber and everie place con- 
venient were clothes of estate, great and large of cloth of gold, 
of tissue, and rich embroderie, with chaires covered with like 

84 Hoi. III. 74. 

35 Hoi. II. 39, 371. 

89 Hoi. I. 331. 



22 Fiske. 

cloth, with pommels of fine gold, and great cushins of rich 
worke of the Turkie making". 37 (For a passage of gorgeous 
description the reader is recommended to the account of the 
marvelous little chapel in the palace at Guisnes, the rich gloom 
of which was lightened by "the copes and vestments" of the 
priests, of "cloth of tissue. . . .powdered with red roses purpled 
withe fine gold." 38 ) The banquet tables glow with "pecocks, 
swans, [and] phesants. . . .in their naturall f ethers, spred as in 
their greatest pride", 39 while the courses of "gellie coloured with 
columbine flowers, white .... creame of almonds, breame of the 
sea. . . . white leach flourished with hawthorne leaves" 40 make a 
modern menu seem tame indeed. The descriptions of the fetes, 
with their wonderful ladies "apparelled in ... . crimsin & purple 
sattin, embrodered with a viniet of pomegranats of gold", with 
"rich & strange tiers on their heads", 41 accompanied by cav- 
aliers, a "band of gentlemen freshlie apparelled, and pleasant to 
behold, all apparelled in cloth of gold, checkered with flat gold of 
damaske, & poudered with roses", 41 dazzle us like an up-to-date 
stage pageant. In short, the whole brilliant life of the palace 
is dwelt upon with a circumstantial and loving minuteness that 
quite refutes his previous protestations of indifference to worldly 
vanities. 

Even more intensely, however, is Holinshed's interest con- 
centrated upon the most conspicuous figure in this dazzling en- 
vironment, namely, that of the king. Seldom has there been a 
blinder advocate of the doctrine of the Divine Rights of Kings. 
The monarch is "the sun, which is as king among the stars 
. . . .the eagle among birds, the lion among beasts, the whale in 
the sea, and the pike in pooles among fishes .... To enter either 
into consultation or action against a person of such excellencie, 
what is it else but to pull the sunne out of heaven, and to 

37 Hoi. III. 647-8. 

38 Hoi. III. 648. 
89 Hoi. IV. 659. 

40 Hoi. III. 126. 

41 Hoi. III. 555-6. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 23 

teare the heart out of the bodie?" 42 He makes, as we shall see 
later, not the slightest discrimination between justifiable up- 
risings of the people, such as Jack Cade's or Jack Straw's re- 
bellions, and those centering around such arrant pretenders as 
Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel. These all alike are 
"monsters of men", transgressing "the limits of all loialtie in 
such an outragious sort", since "God establisheth no principal- 
itie, but he will by his power support the same, even to the 
confusion of all them that seeke either directlie or indirectlie 
to supplant the same." 42 In cases of personal argument between 
a king and his servants, there is never any doubt as to where 
Holinshed stands. Of the quarrel between Henry the Second 
and Becket, for instance, Miss Kate Norgate says, "Thomas thus 
appears to have stood forth as the champion of justice, first in 
behalf of the sheriffs, and secondly in behalf of the whole 
English people/' when "lie opposed a project mooted by the 
king for transferring from the sheriffs' pockets to the royal treas- 
ury a certain 'aid' which those officers customarily received from 
their respective shires as a reward for their administrative work," 
basing his opposition on two grounds : "first, the sheriffs had 
a claim to the money by long prescription, and as earning it by 
their services to the people of the shire; second, the enrolment 
of these sums among the king's dues would create a written 
record which would make their payment to him binding on all 
generations to come." 43 Holinshed's sentiments in regard to 
the affair are based not at all upon the merits of the case. His 
characteristic comment is, "Thus you have heard the tragicall 
discourse of ambitious Becket, a man of meane parentage, and 
yet through the princes favour verie fortunate, if he had not 
abused the benevolence of so gratious a sovereigne by his in- 
solencie and presumption." 44 Somewhat analogous we find 
the case of the very delightful Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, "noted 
to be of a verie perfect life, namelie, bicause he would not sticke 
« Hoi. IV. 910. 

43 Diet. Nat. Biog. Vol. LVI, page 166. 

44 Hoi. II. 136. 



24 Fishe. 

to reproove men of their faults plainelie and frankelie, not re- 
garding the favour or disfavour of any man, in somuch that he 
would not feare to pronounce them accurssed, which being the 
kings officers, would take upon them the punishment of any 
person within orders of the church, for hunting and killing of 
the kings game within his parkes, forrests and chases, yea (and 
that which is more) he would denie paiments of such subsidies 
and taxes as he was assessed to paie to the uses of king Eichard 
and king John, towards the maintenance of their wars, 
.... alledging openlie, that he would not paie any monie 
towards the maintenance of wars, which one christian prince, 
upon private displeasure and grudge, made against another 
prince of the same religion." We learn also that "when he came 
before the king to make answer to his disobedience shewed 
herein, he would so handle the matter, partlie with gentle 
admonishments, partlie with sharpe reproofes, and sometime 
mixing merrie and pleasant speech amongst his serious argu- 
ments, that often times he would so qualifie the kings mood, that 
being driven from anger, he could not but laugh and smile at 
the bishops pleasant talke and merrie conceits." 45 Not by any 
means, however, is our Chronicler "driven to laugh and smile" 
at the saving humor of the kindly bishop. His manly opposi- 
tion to royal mood and whim elicits from the Chronicler only 
the disapproving exclamation, "A presumptuous part in a 
bishop." 459 

So much for his opinion concerning opposition to royal policy 
or willfulness. When it comes to the question of deposition on 
account of weakness or bad government, his point of view may 
be easily deduced. Whether in the case of Henry the Sixth 
whom he exalts as a saint, or Richard the Second whose youth 
and charm win from him indulgent tenderness, the violence done 

to the appointed of God, whom "God will by his power 

support even to the confusion of all them that seeke 

« Hoi. II. 281. 

*"> Hoi. II. 281. 



Conventionalism in HolinslieoVs Chronicle. 25 

either directlie or indirectlie to supplant" him, 40 is what chiefly 
strikes him. This is especially evident in the case of Eichard, 
where his feelings are very fervently engaged. He extolls him 
in spite of his delinquencies. "Thus", he says, "was king Rich- 
ard deprived of all kinglie honour and princelie dignitie, by 
reason he was so given to follow evill counsell, and used such 
inconvenient waies and meanes, through insolent misgovern- 
ance, and youthfull outrage, though otherwise a right noble and 
woorthie prince." " The responsibility for his vices he throws 
on those immediately surrounding the young king. "He was 
seemelie of shape and favor, & of nature good inough, if the 
wickednesse & naughtie demeanor of such as were about him 
had not altered it." 48 These vices he unwillingly rehearses, dis- 
crediting his own account by a doubtful, "Thus have ye heard 

what writers doo report touching the doings of this king. 

But if I may boldlie saie what I thinke", he goes on, "he was 
a prince the most unthankfullie used of his subjects, of any one 
of whom ye shall lightlie read. For although (thorough the 

frailtie of youth) he demeaned himself e more dissolutelie 

than seemed convenient for his roiall estate, & made choise of 

such councellors as were not favoured of the people, 

yet in no kings daies were the commons in greater wealth, if 
they could have perceived their happie state : neither in any 
other time were the nobles and gentlemen more cherished, nor 
churchmen lesse wronged." 49 His indignation at Richard's 
death is unbounded. "What unnaturalnesse, or rather what 
tigerlike crueltie was this, not to be content with his principali- 
tie? not to be content with his treasure? not to be content 
with his deprivation? not to be content with his imprisonment? 
but being so neerelie knit in consanguinitie, which ought to 
have moved them like lambs to have loved each other, woolvishly 
to lie in wait for the distressed creatures life, and ravenouslie 

46 Hoi. IV. 910. 

47 Hoi. II. 868. 

48 Hoi. II. 868. 
« Hoi. II. 869. 



26 Fiske. 

to thirst after his bloud". 50 The whole tragedy rose, thinks 
Holinshed, not from the logic of events, whereby the nation 
threw down a vicious and incompetent ruler, but from the "in- 
gratitude towards their bountifull and loving sovereigne" of 
"those whom he had cheeflie advanced". 51 And the supreme in- 
iquity of these faithless people, which he, along with King 
Charles of France, "detested and abhorred", was that violence 
of any sort should be offered "to an annointed king, to a 
crowned prince, and to the head of a realme". 52 

In short, his unvarying principle is that he who, from any 
motive, rises against his prince, defies the Almighty who alone 
has a right to judge or reprove a man he has endued with regal 
power. 

Chapter IV. 
holinshed's contempt for the common people. 

We have said that the Chronicle is chiefly concerned with 
the doings of the king and his entourage. For the common 
people, — their interests, their joys, their sorrows, — he does not 
care. In contrast to the king, who is, as we have seen, "the 
sun among the stars, the lion among beasts," etc., they are as 
"sheepe by flocks, kine, oxen, harts and hinds feeding by heards 
fishes both in fresh and salt waters following one an- 



other in sholes ; bees dwelling in hives, pigeons in doove-houses, 
ants in little hills". 63 Once only do we find both the heavens 
and Holinshed vengeful on account of the oppression practised 
upon them. Concerning the conduct of The Conqueror in his 
preparation of land for the breeding of deer, Holinshed says, "He 
pulled downe townes, villages, churches, and other buildings for 
the space of 30. miles, to make thereof a forrest, which at this 
daie is called New forrest. The people as then sore bewailed 

50 Hoi. II. 869. 

si Hoi. II. 869. 

52 Hoi. III. 15. 

53 Hoi. IV. 910. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 27 

their distres, & greatlie lamented that they must thus leave 
house & home to the use of savage beasts. Which crueltie, not 
onelie mortall men living here on earth, but also the earth it 
selfe might seeme to detest, as by a woonderfull signification it 
seemed to declare, by the shaking and roaring of the same, 
which chanced about the 14. year of his reigne". 54 As a rule, 
however, the common people are left out of account. Their 
negligibility is indicated in the first volume of the Chronicle. 
"The fourth and last sort of people in England are daie-labour- 
ers, poore husbandmen, and some retailers (which have no free 
land) copie holders, and all artificers, as tailers, shomakers, car- 
penters, brick makers, masons, &c . . . . This fourth and last sort 
of people therefore have neither voice nor authoritie in the com- 
mon wealth, but are to be ruled, and not to rule other". 55 There 
is nonchalant reference to them now and then in his descriptions 
of customs in England, as when, after discussing the dinner 
hour of the nobility, the gentry, the students, the merchants, 
and the husbandmen, he adds carelessly, "As for the poorest 
sort they generallie dine and sup when they may, so that to talke 
of their order of repast, it were but a needlesse matter". 58 As a 
rule, however, they are simply forgotten. 

It is really wonderful how seldom we come across little genre 
pictures of the common man in cottage, field, or inn. Occasion- 
ally, however, the door of hovel or shop flies open, and we catch 
a glimpse of the fire within, or a snatch of village talk; and 
it is noticeable that these glimpses are usually introduced for 
one special purpose : namely, the revelation of popular opinion 
concerning some matter of public interest. In Eose Tavern, for 
instance, we see Robert Parrer, a haberdasher, "falling to his 
common drinke" along with "one Laurence Shirriffe grocer. . . . 
and .... having in his full cups, .... [he] began to talke at large, 
and namelie against the ladie Elisabeth" f and from his talk we 

64 Hoi. II. 23. 
ss Hoi. I. 275. 
so Hoi. I. 288. 
"Hoi. IV. 135-6. 



28 Fishe. 

judge the dislike of the Catholics for Elizabeth, their dread of her 
succession to the throne in event of Queen Mary's death, and 
their hope that she "shall hop headlesse" ere she come to the 
crown."" On another occasion we read how "the selfe night, in 
which king Edward died, one Mistlebrooke, long yer morning, 
came in great hast to the house of one Pottier dwelling in 
Redcross-streete without Creplegate; and when he was with 
hastie rapping quickelie letten in, he shewed unto Pottier, that 
king Edward was departed. 'By my truth man' quoth Pottier, 
'then will my maister the duke of Glocester be king.' " 58 This 
opinion, breathed by one old man to another in the silence of 
midnight, well expresses the atmosphere of hushed, uneasy sus- 
picion that set the people whispering "among themselves sec- 
retlie, that the voice was neither lowd nor distinct, but as it 
were the sound of a swarme of bees", 69 on the day when they 
dared not otherwise protest in Westminister Hall against the 
charlatan speech of the Duke of Buckingham in favor of Rich- 
ard as king. It is strange to find the mind of this neglected 
class thus often used by Holinshed as the mirror in which we 
may note the ebb and flow of current feeling. We see even 
Richard the Third, disturbed by suspicion of conspiracy, de- 
termined "by the rumour of the common people. . . .to search 
out all the counsels, .... intents, and compasses of his close ad- 
versaries ;" 59a and even deciding, on the ground of information 
gained in like manner, upon an important line of state policy. ac 

This function of the common man, namely, for the revela- 
tion of public opinion, is well reflected in the drama. Typical 
instances are those in "Edward the Third" and "If You Know 
not Me, You Know Nobody", respectively, in the first of which 
we learn from the disjointed gossip of some French fugitives 
of the Black Prince's barbarous pillage of the country; wliile, 

57a Hol. IV. 136. 

as Hoi. III. 363. 

59 Hoi. III. 394. 

69a Hoi. III. 416. 

eo Holinshed III. 429. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 29 

in the second, Elizabeth's popularity may be gathered from the 
talk of clowns and soldiers. 

It has often been very truly pointed out that in the Eliza- 
bethan drama the common man finds his place not only in mir- 
roring popular opinion, but also in supplying humor. This 
fuller dramatic development of the figure we have seen gliding 
obscurely through the Chronicle is significant in two ways: 
first, the contempt for the common man, tacit in the Chronicle 
and shown only by consistent neglect, has become in the plays 
active and aggressive; second, the dramatic conception of him 
as clown and butt, however insolent in itself, has turned him 
often into a vivacious figure which serves to emphasize the 
utter ignoring of him in the Chronicle. 

There remains to be noted in the Chronicle cases in which 
the common people, rallying about a leader, rise fiercely from 
their tame acquiescence, a many-headed monster, 60 " only to be 
resolved again shortly into sheep awaiting tremblingly "till it 
pleased the sheepheard to appoint foorth, which should be 
thrust into pasture, and which taken to go to the shambels." 81 
Typical instances are those which center round Jack Cade and 
Perkin Warbeck. The one was a patriot leading a revolt legiti- 
mate and inevitable; the other, an impostor deluding his fol- 
lowers by false representations. 

The figure of Warbeck, by the way, is especially interesting 
as the most significant of a series of adventurers, who, as tools 
in the hands of intriguing statesmen, or on their own initiative, 
aspired at intervals to the English throne. There was Maudelen, 
in the reign of Henry the Fourth, "a man most resembling 
king Richard", whom Henry's enemies "adorned .... in ... . 
princelie vesture, and named .... to be king Eichard, affirming 
that by favour of his keepers he was escaped out of prison". 62 
Also, there was the friar's scholar, "named Eafe Wilford, (a 
shoomakers sonne of London ....)" whom the "Agustine frier 

00i Hol. II. 317. 

81 Hoi. II. 741. 

82 Hoi. III. 11. 



30 Fishe. 

called Patrike. .. .framed. .. .to his purpose, that in hope to 
worke some great enterprise, as to disappoint the king of his 
crowne and seat roiall, tooke upon him to be the earle of War- 
wike, insomuch that both the maister and scholer .... went into 
Kent, & there began the yoong mawmet to tell privilie to manie, 
that he was the verie earle of Warwike, and latelie gotten out of 
the Tower, by the helpe of this frier Patrike." 63 In the reign of 
Queen Mary we hear of "William Fetherstone, a millers sonne 
about the age of eighteene yeares, [who] named and bruted 
himself e to be King Edward the Sixt, whereof when the queene 
and the conncell heard, they caused with all diligence inquirie 
to be made for him, so that he was apprehended in South- 
worke. . . .And it was demanded of him why he so named him- 
selfe? To which he counterfeiting a manner of simplicitie, or 
rather frensie, would make no direct answer. . . .wherefore he 
was committed to the Marshalseie as a lunaticke foole." 84 We 
read also of Lambert Simnel, a priest's scholar, "one of a gentle 
nature and pregnant wit, .... [whom] at Oxford, where their 
abiding was, the said preest instructed .... both with princelie be- 
haviour, civill maners, and good liaterature", 65 in order to pass 
him off as the Duke of York, second son of Edward the Fourth. 
Bacon in his "Life of Henry the Seventh" describes this 
boy as "a baker's son, of the age of some fifteen years; a comely 
youth and well favored, not without some extraordinary dignity 
and grace of aspects, who, trained by a wily priest to personate 
Edward Plantagenet, the son of the Edward the Fourth, played 
his part well, doing nothing that did betray the baseness of his 
condition." 

Of this line of handsome, precocious boys drawn by intrigu- 
ing politicians from cottage and shop into a brief heyday of ex- 
citement and popularity, this Perkin Warbeck is by far the 
most interesting. We have mentioned him in contrast with 
Jack Cade, the patriot, as a palpable impostor. It may be in- 

03 Hoi. III. 523. 
64 Hoi. IV. 75. 
«s Hoi. III. 484. 



Conventionalism in Holinslied's Chronicle. 31 

teresting to dwell for a moment on these two leaders as they 
appear in the Chronicle, the one prudent, dignified, austere, the 
very man to guide the swelling current of popular discontent; 
the other pliant, attractive, admirably calculated to win for a 
time the enthusiastic homage of the people. Holinshed describes 
Cade as "sober in talke, wise in reasoning, arrogant in hart, and 
stiffe in opinion; as who that by no means would grant to 
dissolve his armie, except the king in person would come to him, 
and assent to the things he would require. . . .Being advertised 
of the kings absence, [he] came first into Southwarke, and 
there lodged at the white hart, prohibiting to all his retinue, 
murder, rape, and robberie ; by which colour of well meaning, he 
the more allured to him the harts of the common people." 66 In 
the last clause, with its unjust thrust, we recognize the blind- 
ness of partisan bias. In sharp contrast with this somber figure, 
we see the brilliant Warbeck, "a certeine yoong man of visage 
beautifull, of countenance demure, and of wit craftie and sub- 
till". 67 Bacon, in his "Life of Henry the Seventh", deals with 
him in greater detail. "This was a finer counterfeit stone than 
Lambert Simnel ; better done, and worn upon greater hands ; 
being graced after with the wearing of a King of France and a 
King of Scotland, not a Duchess of Burgundy only. As for 
Simnel, there was not much in him, more than that he was a 
handsome boy, and did not shame his robes. But this one was 
such a mercurial as the like has seldom been known; and could 
make his own part if at any time he chanced to be out." As 
Holinshed has quite unfairly, we feel, robbed Cade of the credit 
due him for his admirable discipline of his soldiers, so he 
throws upon this boy a taunt unjustified by anything we know 
of his career. "This youths name", he says, "was Peter War- 
becke, one for his faintnesse of stomach of the Englishmen in 
derision called Perkin Warbecke, according to the dutch phrase, 
which change the name of Peter to Perkin, of yoonglings and 

ee Hoi. III. 224. 

67 Hoi. III. 504. 



32 Fiske. 

little boies, which for want of age, lacke of strength, and man- 
like courage, are not thought worthie of the name of a man." 87 * 

The point that we would make concerning Holinshed's treat- 
ment of these two men and the causes they represent is a strik- 
ing one. He includes both them and their followers in a whole- 
sale, sweeping condemnation that discriminates not at all be- 
tween the patriot rousing the people to just defense of their 
rights and the impostor deluding them into support of a false 
claim to the throne. The heinous and unpardonable sin in both 
alike consisted in revolt against the anointed of Gk>d. As he 
who wounds or kills his prince is guilty not only of "homicide", 
but also "of parricide, of christicide, nay of deicide", 68 so he 
who, for any cause, raises his hand against Him is the sinner 
next in order. The general principle, without modification, is 
that the darkest doom is deserved, "by the inevitable decree of 
God, [by] all such as insurge and rise against their sovereigne 
. . . .nature spurning against such malicious minds, whose ordi- 
nance tendereth the preservation of all creatures in their 
kinds™* whether earthie, waterie, aierie, or flieng tame or 
wild". 69 

In his treatment of Warbeek there is for our purpose yet 
another point to notice. His arraignment of him is scathing. 
In spite of his previous condemnation of him as a milksop, he 
yet paints him a few pages further on as a most pernicious and 
aggressive villain. "For he had a woonderfull dexteritie and 
readinesse to circumvent, a heart full of overreaching imagi- 
nations, an aspiring mind, a head more wilie (I wisse) than 
wittie; bold he was and presumptuous in his behaviour, as for- 
ward to be the instrument of a mischeefe as anie deviser of 
wickednesse would wish; a feend of the divels owne forging, 
nursed and trained up in the studie of commotions, making offer 

S7a Hol. III. 504. 

es Hoi. II. 385. 

e8a The italics are mine. C.F.F. 

ee Hoi. IV. 910. 



Conventionalism in Holinslied's Chronicle. 33 

to reach as high as he could looke ; such was his inordinate am- 
bition, wherewith he did swell as coveting to be a princes peere : 
much like the tode that would match the bull in drinking, but 
in the end she burst in peeces and never dranke more". 70 Yet it 
is to be noted that the chief sentiment that animates him in re- 
gard to the boy is contempt for his low birth. This note recurs 
again and again. "Perkin thought himselfe aloft, now that he 
was called the familiaritie of kings", 703 he exclaims ironically. 
He likens him to "the jay that would be called a swan, .... the 
crow that trimming hir selfe with the stolne feathers of a pe- 
cocke, would seeme Junos bird". 71 "But Jacke will bee a 
gentleman, the longeared asse will be taken for a leopard, and 
the pelting pismire for a lion", 72 he says insultingly. It is 
not the gigantic fraud which Perkin perpetrated that chiefly 
impresses him, but the "heart full of overreaching imagina- 
tions", the "aspiring mind", with which Warbeck was endowed. 
No sorrow moves him at the spectacle of wasted gifts which 
properly directed might have proved of noble service to Church 
or State. Men humbly born like Warbeck were, in his opinion, 
foreordained to be "turnebroches" or falconers, — menials such 
as Lambert Simnel actually became after the ignominious close 
of his meteoric political career. 72 " 

What Holinshed has failed utterly to do, namely, to com- 
prehend or sympathize with this misdirected genius, Ford has 
done admirably in his play "Perkin Warbeck." The most notice- 
able point in Ford's conception is the manner in which, as Mr. 
Schelling first pointed out, he contrives to combine in Warbeck 
the elements of delusion and imposture. "In the end the tragic 
fortitude of Perkin, who accepts death rather than acknowledge 
himself an impostor, is artfully contrived to leave us alike un- 
convinced of his genuine royalty and yet compassionate of an 

70 Hoi. III. 523. 

70a Hol. III. 504. 

7i Hoi. III. 505. 

"Hoi. III. 519-20. 

72n Hol. III. 488. 



34 Fishe. 

imposture which from inveteracy has become a delusion." This 
treatment of him in the play transforms the figure in the Chron- 
icle into one both tragic and commanding, and is so plausible 
and natural that we, to whom modern science has revealed the 
fatal power of a fixed idea, cannot help wondering that the 
Chronicler was so utterly untouched by the gentle charity of the 
poet. 

In Holinshed, then, we find the common people as a rule 
ignored save as their gossip serves to illuminate the doings 
of king and nobles, their occasional uprising from submissive 
acquiescence being judged not at all on the merits of the case, 
but invariably condemned on the ground of the heinousness of 
any kind of protest against divinely-instituted authority. 

Chapter V. 
holinshed's depreciation of women. 

We have spoken of the fulness with which the Chronicler 
treated the brilliant court-life with its balls, fetes, and masques, 
— a brilliancy which we see well reflected in the drama in such 
descriptions as those in "Edward the Second" of the ideal fan- 
tastic courtier, Piers Gaveston, and the charming entertainments 
he planned for his king; or as that of the masque in "Wood- 
stock", which is distinctly typical of the quaint, shows with which 
the reigns of Edward the Third, Henry the Eighth, and Eliza- 
beth were full. What of the Chronicler's attitude toward the 
women who either moved in the midst of this glittering environ- 
ment, or gazed longingly at it from afar ? 

Two types of women appear in the Chronicle. The first 
class, to whom the Chronicler affords a measure of patronizing 
praise, is well represented by Lady Scot, Kb "a most vertuous 
and noble matrone, and a lively paterne of womanhood and so- 
brietie, the daughter of sir John Baker knight, and the mother 
of seventeene children". Elisabeth, "daughter of John Cop- 
inger, of Alhallowes in the countie of Kent", is another of these 

,2b Hol. IV. 866. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 35 

lively patterns, "being a woman of such rare modestie and pa- 
tience, as hir verie enimies must needs confesse the same". 126 
These exemplary persons appear so often in obituary notices, 
genealogies, etc., that it is a pity they are not more interesting. 

The other class is that of the aggressive women, every speci- 
men of which is made the subject of a bitter gibe at the sex. 
Margaret of Burgoyne (the patroness of Perkin Warbeck), for 
instance, calls forth the following trenchant comment: "Yet 
notwithstanding, as women will not (to die for it) give over 
an enterprise, which of an envious purpose they attempt; so 
she put hir irons afresh into the tier to set hir hatred for- 
ward". 73 "Alas", he meditates concerning Isabella of France, 
"what will not a woman be drawne and allured unto, if by 
evill counsell she be once assaulted? And what will she leave 
undoone, though never so inconvenient to those that should be 
most deere unto hir, so her owne fansie and will be satisfied? 
And how hardlie is she revoked from proceeding in an evill ac- 
tion, if she have once taken a taste of the same?" 74 As for 
Elinor of Aquitaine, her conduct provokes the following cen- 
sure: "So hard it is to bring women to agree in one mind, 
their natures commonlie being so contrarie, their words so 
variable, and their deeds so undiscreet." 75 On no occasion can 
he refrain from this satire on the sex; the unique achieve- 
ment of an audacious girl who dressed in men's clothes and cele- 
brated mass elicited the following comment in brackets, possibly 
the first direct masculine protest in England on the woman 
question. "It is not to be doubted, but that in these daies 
manie of the female sex be medling in matters impertinent to 
their degree, and inconvenient for their knowledge; debating 
& scanning in their privat conventicles of such things as wher- 
about if they kept silence, it were for their greater commen- 

720 Hoi. IV. 553. 

73 Hoi. III. 507. 

74 Hoi. II. 578. 
TBHol. II. 274. 



36 Fislce. 

dation". 76 He must also have instinctively disliked "the countesse 
of Bierne (a woman monstruous big of bodie) .... [whose ser- 
vice] if to hir making and stature [had been added] the cour- 
age of Voadacia. . . .or the prowesse of Elfleda. . . . [would have] 
beene no lesse beneficiall to the K. than anie skilfull capteins 
marching under his banner.'" 7 

Such, then, is his attitude toward women. In regard to 
only three can we discern in these volumes the least sensitiveness 
to charm and beauty. One instance of such sensibility is the 
really charming description of Lady Mary Sidney, whom "none 
could match .... either in the good conceipt and frame of 
orderlie writing. .. .or facilitie of gallant, sweet, delectable, 
and courtlie speaking". 78 The other is the quaint little minia- 
ture of Elizabeth Grey as she appeared with her petition before 
King Edward the Fourth, her future husband, "a woman of a 
more formall countenance than of excellent beautie; and yet 
both of such beautie and favour, that with hir sober demeanour, 
sweete looks, and comelie smiling (neither too wanton, nor too 
bashfull) besides hir pleasant toong and trim wit, she so alured 
and made subject unto her the heart of that great prince, that 
... .he finallie resolved with himselfe to marrie hir". 79 So sweet 
a mignonette fragrance of old-time womanhood breathes out from 
these descriptions, that we can almost forgive Holinshed the in- 
sipidity of his "lively patterns" and his spite against women in 
general. There is one scene in which his treatment of Elizabeth 
Grey is exquisite in its tenderness. We refer to the episode 
which occurs when, after the king's death, she as queen has 
fled to sanctuary with her youngest son, the little king having 
been already seized by his tyrant-uncle. The scene is full of 
pathetic beauty. The Chronicler reveals to us first the sanctu- 
ary where "the queene hir selfe sate alone alow on the rushes 

7 "Hol. II. 829. 

"Hoi. II. 397-8. 

78 Hoi. IV. 879. 

79 Hoi. III. 283-4. 



Conventionalism in Holinslied's Chronicle. 37 

all desolate and dismaid",' 9 " listening to the tramp of the lords 
through the hollow spaces as they came to take from her her 
second boy. The workings of her passionate motherhood are 
well depicted : first the defiant refusal, then the breaking down 
into a pitiful little plea, "I saie not naie, but that it were verie 
convenient, that this gentleman, whome yee require, were in 
companie of the king his brother ; [yet he] .... (besides his 
infancie. . . .) hath a while beene so. .. .vexed with sicknesse, 
and is so newlie rather a little amended. . . .that. . . .albeit there 
might be founden other that would happilie doo their best unto 
him, yet is there none that .... is more tenderlie like to cherish 
him, than his owne mother that bare him." 79b And when she 
at last saw that all was useless, "therewithall she said unto the 
child; Fare well mine owne sweet sonne, God send you good 
keeping: let me kisse you yet once yer you go, for God know- 
eth when we shall kisse togither againe. And therewith she 
kissed him and blessed him, turned hir backe and wept and 
went hir waie, leaving the child weeping as fast." 80 The whole 
passage describing this parting, as we read it at full in the 
Chronicle, reminds us of the classical simplicity and beauty of 
the parting of Ruth and Naomi in the King James version of 
the Bible. 

The third instance of Holinslied's forbearance from his 
usual gibes is in the case of a woman of a far different type, 
Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward the Fourth. Systemati- 
cally austere though he is towards women, he has not been 
proof against the charm of this woman "and the gentleness and 
largeness of spirit distinguishing her who never abused the 
kings favor "to anie mans hurt, but to manie a mans comfort 
and releef e" ; and "where the king tooke displeasure .... would 
mitigate and appease his mind : where men were out of favour 
. . . .would bring them in his grace. For manie that had highlie 

79a Hoi. III. 368. 

79b Hol. III. 374. 

80 Hoi. III. 377. 



38 Fiske. 

offended shee obteined pardon. Of great forfeitures she gat 
men remission." "Proper she was and faire", he says. "Nothing 
in hir bodie that you would have changed, but if ye would have 
wished hir somewhat higher .... Yet delighted not men so much 
in hir beautie, as in hir pleasant behaviour. For a proper wit 
had she, and could both read well and write, merrie in com- 
panie, readie and quicke of answer, neither mute, nor full of 
bable". 81 Even in her penance he is very gentle, telling us 
how, when she passed through the streets with a taper in her 
hand, "she went in countenance and pase demure so womanlie, 
... .so faire and lovelie, namelie while the woondering of the 
people cast a comelie rud in hir cheeks (of which she before had 
most misse) that. . . .manie good folks also that hated hir liv- 
ing. . . .yet pitied. . . .more hir penance, than rejoised therin". 81 
Such, then, is the attitude of the Chronicler towards women, 
the time-worn tradition of their malice, their deceit, their innate 
perversity remaining unaltered in his hands. It is strange to 
see how this conventional conception of womanhood governs the 
playwrights who turn to the Chronicles for their material. It 
would seem natural that dramatic exigency or artistic ideal 
should oftener have changed these wooden dolls or wrangling 
shrews into figures more colorful and lifelike, as in the case of 
the Countess of Salisbury who, barely mentioned in the Chron- 
icle, 82 appears in "Edward the Third" as a delightful picture 
of dignified and intellectual womanhood ; or of Kate Gordon, 
also a mere name in the Chronicle, 82 " who becomes in "Perkin 
Warbeck" one of the most charming sketches of spirited girl- 
hood in our literature. As a matter of fact, such cases are 
very few. We may note briefly that, out of the nearly two-score 
women appearing in the pages of the Chronicle Play, we may 
dismiss about half of them as of the entirely colorless variety 
without a single salient characteristic. These are the Princess 
Katherine of France ("Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth") ; 

81 Hoi. III. 384-5. 

82 Hoi. II. 629. 
82,1 Hoi. III. 511. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 39 

Elizabeth Grey ("The Contentions") ; Joan of Arc and Elinor 
de Montfort ("Edward the First") ; Queen Phillipe ("Ed- 
ward the Third") ; Anne a Beanie ("Woodstock") ; Anne of 
Warwick ("True Tragedy of Eichard the Third") ; Jane Sey- 
mour, Mary Tudor, and Katherine Parr ("When You See Me, 
You Know Me"). These are the model Chronicle women; and 
closest to them in mere conventionality, guarded by their roy- 
alty as others by their virtue, stand the Queens Mary and Eliz- 
abeth ("If You Know not Me"). In Elinor of Aqaitaine and 
Constance (the old "King John" of Bale), we have merely the 
exhibition of two wrangling women, unrelieved by any trace of 
womanliness save a touch of passionate motherhood in Con- 
stance. Elinor ("The Contentions"), the wife of the good 
Duke Humphrey, is a mere ambitious schemer. Isabella, Queen 
of Edward the Second, beginning as a model of domesticity, is 
driven at last into a fiendish cruelty which prepares us for 
the incarnate devils we subsequently encounter in Margaret of 
Anjou ("The Contentions"), and Elinor of Castile ("Edward 
the First"), the last two being cruel dramatic slanders on the 
part of the playwright. 

Of the two women receiving from Holinshed sympathetic 
and detailed treatment, it is interesting to find one stepping — 
breathing and vivid — out of the pages of the Chronicle into the 
play of Thomas Hey wood. It seems odd that this poet, with 
his wonderful capacity for dealing with the pathetic in domestic 
life, having found Jane Shore and Elizabeth Grey so strikingly 
drawn and so closely connected with the story he was telling, 
should have taken only one for his "Edward the Fourth" and 
have left the other buried alive in the ponderous tomes. 

In Holinshed's treatment of women, then, we find a mere 
echo of the virulent abuse of them by classical writers and 
Christian Fathers alike, his severity softened now and then, in 
individual cases, by his susceptibility to some peculiar quality of 
feminine attractiveness. 



40 Fislce. 

Chapter VI. 
holinshed's religious opinions. 

Holinshed's attitude towards religious questions may be 
studied under three aspects: his hatred of Catholicism; his 
belief in God's manifestation of Himself through signs, omens, 
and dreams; his belief in the devil's manifestation of himself 
in variety of shapes, human or otherwise. This last point will 
be dealt with in a separate chapter. 

The hatred of Catholicism, evident in every portion of these 
books, is inconceivable to our age; and it is the Pope as repre- 
sentative of this hated system who bears the brant of the 
Chronicler's invective. "[The Pope]," he says, "hath more 
varietie of" "deceits and crafts .... than the cat of the mounteine 
hath spots in his skin, or the pecocke hath eies in his taile." 83 
"He must have his ore in everie mans bote, his spoone in everie 
mans dish, and his fingers in every mans pursse". 84 "Note here", 
he says of Alexander the Third, "the intolerable pride of this 
anti christian pope .... and the basemindednesse of these two 
kings in ascribing unto that man of sinne such dignitie .... But 
what will this monster of men, this Stupor mundi, this Diaboli 
primogenitus .... not arrogate for his owne advancement ; like 
yvie climing aloft, & choking the tree by whose helpe it creep- 
eth". 85 And then he expatiates in Latin on "the end of this 
seavenhorned beast. .. .lifting it selfe up to heaven". Pope 
Gregory is his special bete noire; but Pope Julius also comes in 
for abuse as "a porkish pope"; 86 while the marginal expression, 
"Pope Julius blasphemeth God for a peacocke" ! S7 sums up two 
little stories delightful in their naive malice. Possibly the 
most interesting bit of the marginal abuse of the Catholics oc- 
curs when, having told us of the Catholic who died at the stake 

83 Hoi. II. 401. 

84 Hoi. II. 173. 
ss Hoi. II. 118. 
so Hoi. IV. 77. 
st Hoi. IV. 77. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 41 

exclaiming, "In manus tuas Domine", he inserts a side note, 
"He should have said Demon. " ss 

In the first place, the stress that the Chronicler lays upon 
the Protestant open Bible especially strikes us. The "malice" of 
the Catholics against the Scriptures is vividly denounced. One 
Pavier, in Henry the Eighth's reign, expressed himself to the 
following vigorous effect : that "if he thought the kings high- 
nesse would set foorth the scripture in English, and let it be 
read of the people by his authoritie, .... he would cut his owne 
throat". Holinshed goes on to tell us with glee, however, that 
"lie brake promise, for .... he hanged himself e ; but of what 
mind and intent he so did, male be soone gathered. For God 
had (no doubt) appointed him to that judgement, no lesse 
heavie than his offense was heinous; namelie the contempt of 
Gods word, the knowledge whereof David desired, preferring it 
before gold and silver, yea before pearles & pretious stones in 
richnesse; and before honie and the honiecombe in sweetnes". 89 
As an instance of Catholic perversity, he also tells us how a 
certain artist had painted, as part of a pageant in honor of the 
marriage of Philip and Mary, a figure of Henry the Eighth "in 
harnesse having in one hand a sword, and in the other hand a 
booke", on which was written "Verbum Dei", whereupon there 
"was no small matter made, for the bishop of Winchester. . . . 
sent for the painter, and .... called him knave for painting a 
booke in king Henries hand. . . . [marked] Verbum Dei". It is 
interesting to learn that the painter was so frightened that, lest 
he should leave some part either of the book or of the "Verbum 
Dei" in King Henry's hand, "lie wiped awaie a peece of his 
[the King's] fingers withall." 90 

We are all familiar with the abuse of the Catholics found in 
Bale's play, "King John", and in "The Troublesome Eeign of 
King John". More interesting is it to see how Holinshed's 
glorfiication of the Bible, and especially of Queen Elizabeth's 

88 Hoi. IV. 494. 

89 Hoi. III. 788. 

90 Hoi. IV. 02-3. 



42 Fiske. 

reverence for it 8011 finds similar expression in the play "If Yon 
Know not Me." It is to this book that Elizabeth turns for com- 
fort at her doleful entrance into the Tower. It is a Bible that 
the angels put into her hands when she has fallen asleep worn- 
out with care ; and finally the play ends with the speech in which 
the Queen, on receiving from the citizens at her coronation a 
purse and a Bible, discants at length to the crowd on the price- 
less value of the latter gift. On the other hand, in this play, 
Elizabeth's Catholic jailer, Benningfield, picking a Bible up by 
chance from a bench in the garden where the Princess has been 
walking, exclaims in horror, "Marrie a God ! What's here ? 
An English Bible ! Sancta Maria, pardon this profanation . . . ! 
Water, Barwick, water ! I'll meddle with't no more !" 

The second distinguishing mark of the religion of the Chron- 
icle lies in the profound sense of the religious significance at- 
tached to the wonders and prodigies of nature, as indicative of 
God's judgment on mankind or his warnings to them. Occasion- 
ally the Supreme Being is represented in a more gentle aspect, 
as where in "a place by the sea side, all of the hard stone and 
pibble .... where never grew grasse, nor any earth was ever 
seene, there chanced in this barren place suddenlie to spring 
up without any tillage or sowing, great abundance of peason, 
whereof the poore gathered .... above an hundred quarters ; yet 
remained some ripe, and some blossoming, as manie as ever 
there were before". 61 As a rule, however, the tender mercies 
of the Lord are fairly represented by what the Chronicler terms 
"a freendlie warning", "whereby the old and underpropped 
scaffolds round about the beare garden. . . .fell suddenlie downe, 
whereby to the number of eight persons .... were slaine, and 
manie other sore hurt and brused", — all to teach us not to watch 
bears on Sunday. 92 

Imbued as the times were with such beliefs, it is not strange 
that we find in the Chronicle a series of most wonderful stories. 

9011 Hoi. IV. 176. 

9i Hoi. IV. 79. 

92 Hoi. IV. 504. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 43 

"[In] 1097", Holinshed asserts, "neere to Abington at a towne 
called Finchamsteed in Barkshire, a well or fountain flowed with 
bloud in maner as before it used to flow with water". 03 On 
another occasion, "it rained blond in the He of Wight, by the 
space of two daies togither, so that linen clothes that hoong on 
the hedges were coloured therewith". 94 Also "appletrees and 
peare trees, now after the time of yeelding their ripe fruit, began 
agame to blossome as if it had beene in Aprill". 96 In Henry 
the Third's reign, "not f arre from the abbie of Roch . . . . , there 
appeared comming foorth of the earth companies of armed 
men on horssebacke, with speare, shield, sword, and baners 
displaied, in sundrie formes and shapes, riding in order of 
battell, and incountering togither". 90 And afterwards the marks 
of their feet appeared in the ground and the grass was trodden 
where they had skirmished. These uncanny warriors sometimes 
issued instead out of castles in the air, — "that host which sailed 
out of the castell in the southeast seemed white, and the other 
blacke". 97 The sea was as full as the earth or the sky of her own 
peculiar wonders. Fish fought weird battles in the ocean, 98 
and in Henry the Sixth's reign a cock came "out of the sea, 
having a great crest upon his head, and a great red beard, and 
legs of halfe a yard long : he stood on the water & crowed foure 
times, and everie time turned him about, and beckened with 
his head, toward the north, the south, and the west, and was of 
colour like a fesant, & when he had crowed three times, he van- 
ished awaie". 99 This prodigy gains significance, when we re- 
flect that elsewhere in the Chronicle, in pageants, etc., the cock 
is a symbol of the genius that protects the land from its enemies. 

83 Hoi. II. 39. 

94 Hoi. II. 174. 

80 Hoi. II. 424. 

96 Hoi. II. 379-80. 

87 Hoi. II. 677. 

ss Hoi. II. 390. 

09 Hoi. III. 244. 



44 Fishe. 

There is no doubt in the Chronicler's mind as to the sig- 
nificance of these phenomena. "These reports" he says, "might 
seeme incredible, speciallie to such as be hard of beleefe, and 
refuse to give faith and credit to anything but what their owne 
eies have sealed to their consciences, so that the reading of such 
woonders as these is no more beneficiall to them, than to earrie 
a candle before a blind man, or to sing a song to him that is 
starke deafe. Neverthelesse, of all uncouth and rare sights,. . . . 
we ought to be so farre from having little regard; that we 
should rather in them and by them observe the event and falling 
out of some future thing". 100 In another place after reading 
pretty tales about melodious cries floating down from "hounds 
perfectlie to be discerned" in the air, 101 and of a "showre of 
haile, amongest the which were found stones of diverse shapes 
marvellous to behold, as in the likenes of frogs, mattocks, 
swords, horsse shooes, nailes. . . .skills. . . .&c", 102 we are told that 
"God sendeth these and manie such significant warnings, before 
he taketh the rod in hand". 103 It may be added here that im- 
mense importance is attached to monstrous births. We learn 
after reading a quite unquotable description, that such sights 
signify "our monstrous life which God, for his mercie, give us 
grace to amend". 104 

We have, then, the view of Holinshed concerning prodigies. 
They are mysterious warnings of events to come, generally 
calamities and sometimes punitive calamities. These foreshad- 
owed disasters may possibly be avoided by prudence or repent- 
ance, but, according to his gloomy view, they seldom are avoided. 
Under the first class we may note the blazing stars and comets 
which generally preceded the death of a sovereign. Sometimes, 
however, the omen appeared in the sea, as when the death of 
Henry the Second was foreshadowed in Normandy "by a mar- 

100 Hoi. II. 290-91. 

ioi Hoi. IV. 431. 

102 Hoi. IV. 431. 

103 Hoi. IV. 432. 

104 Hoi. IV. 432. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 45 

vellous strange woonder, for a few daies before he died, all the 
fishes in a certeine meere .... in Normandie, leapt f oorth on land 
in the night season, and fought togither with such a noise, that 
a great multitude of men came running thither to behold the 
woonder, and could not find on fish alive in the meere." ' As 
an example of lack of prudence our attention is called, in one 
place, to James the Fourth of Scotland, who attacked the Eng- 
lish "nothing moved with these extraordinarie accidents", that 
"the buckle leather .... of the kings helmet was gnawne with 
mise, and the cloth or veile of his inner tent of sanguine red". 106 
Of course they were defeated and their king killed. Tempest and 
storm bore with them a significance quite apart from their mere 
natural terror ; while even the flowing of the Thames in its spring 
fullness was enough to strike William Eufus into remorse for his 
riotous excesses. 107 The heavens, however, were especially 
scanned for signs and warnings, such appearances as the follow- 
ing being, according to Holinshed, a not uncommon occurrence : 
"On the sundaie before the nativitie of S. John Baptist.... 
there appeared a marvellous sight in the aire .... For whereas 
the new moone shone foorth verie faire with his homes towardes 
the east, streightwais the upper home was divided into two, out 
of the mids of which division a burning brand sprang up, cast- 
ing from it a farre off coles and sparks, as it had beene of fire. 
The bodie of the moon in the meane time that was beneath, 
seemed to wrest and writh in resemblance like to an adder or 
snake". 108 On the occasion of such another lunar manifestation, 
the air was "full of clouds of diverse colours, as red, yellow, 
green and pale". 108a All these sights are perfectlie comprehens- 
ible, thinks Holinshed, since "the people so estrange themselves 
from God by using manie strange fashions, and clapping on new 
conditions and natures, that except he shew some miracles, his 

105 Hoi. II. 198-9. 

ioc Hoi. IV. 896. 

107 Hoi. II. 44. 

los Hoi. II. 177. 

1088 Hoi. II. 177. 



46 Fishe. 

godhead would quickelie be forgotten on earth, and men would 
beleeve there were no other world but this". 108 " 

Turning to our plays, we find them full of similar illustra- 
tive data concerning the significance attached to striking 
phenomena of nature. To the ears of the bastard, in "The 
Troublesome Eeign of King John", the very trees and waters 
whisper the secret of his birth. 

"Methinks I hear a hollow echo sound 

That Philip is the son unto a king; 

The whistling leaves upon the trembling trees 

Whistle in consort I am Richard's son; 

The bubbling murmur of the water's fall 

Records Philippus Regius filius; 

Birds in their flight make music with their wings, 

Filling the air with glory of my birth : 

Birds, bubbles, leaves, and mountains, echo, all 

Ring in mine ears that I am Richard's son." 
To the guilty conscience of Richard the Third, in "the True 
Tragedy of Richard the Third", all nature is "on tiptoe and 
aware." 

"The sun by day shines hotly for revenge; 

The moon by night eclipseth for revenge; 

The stars are changed to comets for revenge; 

The planets change their courses for revenge; 

The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge ; 

The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge; 

The screeking raven sits croaking for revenge; 

Whole heads of beasts come bellowing for revenge; 

And all, yea, all the world, I think, 

Cries for revenge and nothing but revenge. 
When the little Princes are murdered in "Edward the Fourth," 
the conscience-struck Tyrell exclaims, 

"The very night is frighted, and the stars 
Do drop like torches to behold this deed"; 
10Sb Hol. IV. 431. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 47 

a passage which seems almost an echo of one in the Chronicle 
where "starres were seene fall from the skie after a marvellous 
sort, not after the common manner, but thirtie or fortie at once, 
so fast one after another and glansing to and fro, that if there 
had fallen so manie verie starres in deed, there would none have 
beene left in the firmament." 108c Possibly, however, the most in- 
teresting development in our plays of the motive of prodigious 
manifestations of nature connected with the commission of 
crime is found in the evolution of the stage ghost. In "The 
Troublesome Eeign of King John", we have only the vivid con- 
science-pangs of the guilty man betrayed in his passionate dying 
speech. In "The Contentions" we have advanced a step. The 
Cardinal Beauford, guilty of the good Duke Humphrey's death, 
cries out in his dying delirium, 

"Oh, see where Duke Humphrey's ghost doth stand, 
And stares me in the face ! . . . . Comb down his hair ! 
And now he's gone again !" 
Still we have only the delirious fancies of a fevered man. With 
"The True Tragedy of Richard the Third", a bonafide ghost of 
the Duke of Clarence appears as prologue, and, though he does 
not appear again to the audience, is distinctly visible to the 
guilty Richard, as is evident from the latter's hysterical exclama- 
tions. In "Edward the Fourth," the fully developed ghost is 
introduced bodily into the heart of the play, Doctor Shaw being 
haunted not by Clarence himself, but by a proxy in the shape 
of Friar Anselme. 

The other above-mentioned function of striking phenomena 
of nature, namely, that of foretelling calamity, but without any 
suggestion of punitive visitation, is handled very strikingly in 
"Woodstock." We glance into the vast room with its motheaten 
curtains and mouldering walls, a gloomy place where wan- 
ders restlessly "a poor old man thrust from .... native country, 
kept and imprisoned in a foreign kingdom". "Lighten my fears, 
dear Lord", he prays, and then lies down to his fitful sleep. A 
storm arises, and in the crash of the tempest there glides to his 

108c Hol. II. 400. 



48 Fislce. 

bedside the ghost of his brother, the Black Prince, roused "from 
. .. .tomb elate at Canterbury" by "the horror and th' eternal 
shrieks of death" that "shook fair England's great cathedral". 
"Thomas of Woodstock, awake. Thy brother calls thee! 
The royal issue of King Edward's loins, 
Thou art beset with murder ! Eise and fly ! 
Oh yet, for pity, wake ! Prevent thy doom !" 
He vanishes into the storm and another ghost, that of King 
Edward the Third, glides into his place moaning, 

"The murderers are at hand ! Awake, my son ! 
This hour foretells thy sad destruction !" 
In intervals of the storm we catch the whispers of the ruffians 
creeping through the long corridors. And Woodstock awakes 
to find himself in the hands of his murderers. 

An interesting use of these portents is that whereby the play- 
wright, selecting them from the Chronicle, attaches to them 
his own dramatic interpretation. Thus "about the moneth of 
December, there were seen in the province of Yorke, five moones, 
one in the east, the second in the west, the third in the north, 
the fourth in the south, and the fift as it were set in the middest 
of the other". This, in the Chronicle, foretells a "winter .... 
extreamelie cold". 10M In the play, "King John", these moons ap- 
pear hovering over the head of the hero, and are made the cen- 
ter of Peter of Pomfert's prophecy. Also "on Candlemasse date 
in the morning .... the sunne .... appeared .... like three sunnes, 
and suddenlie joined altogither in one." 109 These suns are bor- 
rowed by the writer of "The True Tragedy of Eichard, Duke 
of York" to burst upon the young Duke of York (afterwards 
Eichard the Third), and his brothers as they come together 
by chance on the battlefield, and are interpreted by Eichard 
as a sign that "they three shall join and overpower the 
world." Just before the battle of Cressy, Holinshed tells us, 
"there fell a great raine, and an eclipse with a terrible thunder, 
and before the raine, there came flieng over both armies a great 

,08d Hoi. II. 282. 
100 Hoi. Ill, 269-70. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 49 

number of crowes, for feare of the tempest comming". 110 This 
incident is most tellingly expanded in "Edward the Third"; 
and as a result of "the sudden darkness .... [that] defaced the 
sky", and a flight of ravens croaking and hovering in the air, 
the French soldiers in a panic let fall their arms and "stood 
like metamorphosed images bloodless and pale, one gazing on 
the other". The quick-witted French king is equal to the 
emergency. He cries, 

"Return and hearten up those yielding souls. 
Tell them the ravens, seeing them in arms, 
So many fair against a famished few, 
Come but to dine upon their handiwork, 
And prey upon the carrion they kill." 

It is upon dreams, however, that our Chronicler lays special 
stress. "Their rash opinion therefore is much to be checked", 
he says, "which contemne dreames as meere delusorie .... For 
though some sort of dreames (as those that be physical) are not 
greatlie to be relied upon; yet those of the metaphysicall sort 
having a speciall influence from above natures reach are not 
lightlie to be over-slipped."" 1 Thus, Lord Stanley, on the night 
before he was attacked and Lord Hastings arrested and exe- 
cuted, had a fearful dream of a boar that "with his tuskes so 
rased them both by the heads, that the bloud ran about both 
their shoulders"; 112 King Henry the First saw in his sleep "a 
multitude of ploughmen with such tooles as belong to their trade 
and occupation; after whom came a sort of souldiers with war- 
like weapons : and last of all, bishops approching towards him 
with their crozier staves readie to fall upon him"; 113 and was 
thereby warned to amend his former life. It may be said, how- 
ever, that in those days the gods busied themselves, in dreams, 
with matters also of minor moral importance. We are informed, 

110 Hoi. II. 638. Compare "Edward the Third" Act. IV. 

m Hoi. II. 74. 

112 Hoi. III. 381. 

us Hoi. II. 74. 



50 Fishe. 

without a gleam of conscious humor, how in those days when 
"men forgetting their owne sex and state, transformed themselves 
into the habit and forme of women, by suffering their haire to 
grow in length, the which they curled and trimmed verie cur- 
iouslie, after the maner of damosels", there was one young 
gentleman "that tooke no small liking of himselfe for his faire 
and long haire, who chanced to have a verie terrible dreame. 
For it seemed to him in his sleepe that one was about to strangle 
him with his owne haire, which he wrapped about his throte and 
necke, the impression whereof sanke so deepelie into his mind, 
that when he awaked out of his sleepe, he streightwaies caused 
so much of his haire to be cut as might seeme superfluous. A 
great number of other in the realme followed his commendable 
example". 114 

We find the importance of dreams as dwelt on by the Chron- 
icler reflected likewise in our plays. The dream of the Duchess 
in "Woodstock" on the night before her husband's arrest, an 
arrest that resulted in his execution, is curiously vivid. 

"Methought as you were ranging through the woods, 
An angry lion with a herd of wolves 
Had in an instant round encompassed you ; 
When to your rescue, gainst the course of kind, 
A flock of silly sheep made head against them, 
Bleating for help; gainst whom the Forest King 
Eoused up his strength and slew both you and them." 
It is an interesting point in this connection, that, while the 
dramatist has carefully adapted this dream from the actual cir- 
cumstances of Woodstock's capture as related in the Chronicle, 
in the actual presentation of the scene of that capture he has 
unfortunately entirely altered these Chronicle circumstances. 
The scene in the Chronicle, which is figuratively expressed in 
the dream of the play, is full of simple beauty . U4a The unsus- 
picious Duke receives in his Essex country house the treacherous 
young King (his nephew), with his courtiers, who ride in ap- 

114 Hoi. II. 77-8. 

U4a Hol. II. 836-38. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 51 

parently wornout with hunting. King Richard, after chatting 
a moment with the Duchess in the court, refuses to dismount 
till he shall have had some business talk with the Duke whom, 
on a plausible pretext, he lures out from his group of retainers 
into the leafy woods. There, once outside "the gate of the base 
court", the king and his courtiers disarm the Duke, just as in 
the Duchess's dream the lion and the wolves fell upon him. 
The very striking quality and atmosphere of this scene, with its 
exhibition of loyal trust and royal perfidy, entirely vanish in 
the glitter and bustle of the play-episode, where the king and 
his courtiers arrive in the guise of masquers, arresting the Duke 
in his own hall instead of in the woods outside. 

In "If You Know not Me," the dreams of the Princess 
Elizabeth and her maid concerning weddings and gardens are 
curiously reminiscent of the old superstition of the ill-luck at- 
tending such dreams. At first blush, too, it seems strange that 
these ominous dreams should not have come at the first of the 
play rather than at the point where Elizabeth's troubles are 
about to end in the death of her sister Mary. A little later 
we see, however, that the writer has dramatic intention in their 
introduction just here. Elizabeth exclaims, "Oh God ! My last 
night's dream I greatly fear ! It doth presage my death !" 
Just at that moment she sees from her balcony some horsemen 
speeding towards the castle. Her attendant, Gage, says, ex- 
citedly, 

"Madam, I see from far a horseman coming; 
This way he bends his speed. He comes so fast 
That he is covered with a cloud of dust; 
And now I have lost his sight. He appears again, 
Making his way o'er hill, hedge, ditch, and plain. 
One after him, they two strive 
As on the race they wagered both their lives. 
Another after him!" 
Eliz.: "Oh God! What means this haste? 

Pray for my soul ; my life cannot long last !" 



52 

Ftske. 

Gage : "Strange and miraculous ! The first being at the gate, 

The horse hath broke his neck and cast his rider." 
Eliz. : "This same is but as prologue to my death. 

My heart is guiltless, though they take my breath" ; 
and straight in upon this tumult of doubt and fear rushes Sir 
Henry Carew, crying, 

"God save the Queen ! God save Elizabeth ! 
God bless your Grace! God bless your Majesty!" 
The thrilling effect of this whole episode is immensely en- 
hanced by the misconception caused in Elizabeth's mind by the 
ominous dream and the stumbling of the horse at the gate. 

It is only just to Holinshed to say that, in his attitude to- 
wards religious questions, he displays a little less than usual 
of his customary conventional bias. As to the significance of 
unusual phenomena, he at least recognizes another point of 
view. Touching celestial apparitions he says, "The common 
doctrine of philosophie is, that they be meere naturall, and 
therefore of no great admiration." 115 In another place, he even 
goes so far, in regard to certain phenomena, as to state that he 
would be almost inclined to say that "they proceeded of some 
naturall cause", except that "lie might be thought to offend re- 
ligion." 1158 This blind groping towards more enlightened views is 
even more marked in the chapter where he treats of the Marvels 
of England. 116 He begins with the statement that, having the 
fear of God before his eyes, he purposes to set down no more 
than either he himself knows to be true or is "crediblie in- 
formed to be so by such godlie men, as to whom nothing is 
more deare than to speake the truth, and not anie thing more 
odious than to discredit themselves by lieng." 110a Whereupon, 
nevertheless, follow the most astonishing tales of "a manor in 
Glocestershire where certeine okes doo grow, whose rootes are 

115 Hoi. II. 177. 
116,1 Hoi. I. 49(3. 

116 Hoi. I. 216. 
llfia Hol. I. 217. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle. 53 

verie hard stone" ; 116b of the two lakes in Snowdonie "whereof 
one beareth a moovable Hand, which is carried to and fro as 
the wind bloweth" ; 116c and he doubtless also believes implicitly in 
such other marvels as that of a "certeine swallow [i. e. pool], 
so deepe and so cold in the middest of summer, that no man 
dare dive to the bottome thereof for coldnesse, and yet for all 
that in winter never found to have beene touched with frost, 
much lesse to be covered with ise"; m and as that of the "well 
in Paphlagonia whose water seemeth as it were mixed with 
wine", and of the "river of Thracia upon whose bankes a man 
shall hardlie misse to find some traveller or other sleeping for 
drunkennesse, by drinking of that liquor."" 8 He has naturally 
not dreamed yet of explaining by natural causes such phenomena 
as "the stones dailie found" "in part of the hilles east southeast 
of Alderelie, .... perf ectlie fashioned like cockles and mightie 
oisters, which some dreame have lien there ever since the 
floud" ; 119 or the "welles and water-courses .... which at some 
times burst out into huge streames, though at other seasons they 
run but verie softlie" ; 119a or other phenomena which modern sci- 
entists have no trouble in explaining. On the contrary, when 
he says, "In the clifts betweene the Blacke head and Trewardeth 
baie in Cornwall, is a certeine cave, where things appeare like 
images guilded, on the sides of the same", — good warrant to 
the vulgar to consider it haunted, — he is quick to add, "[This] 
I take to be nothing but the shining of the bright ore of coppar 
and other mettals, readie at hand to be found there, if anie 
diligence were used." 120 And after telling us of the "poole in 
Logh Taw among the blacke mounteins in Brecknockshire. . . . 

116b Hol. I. 218. 

1160 Hoi. I. 217-8. 

H7 Hoi. I. 171. 

"8 Hoi. I. 354. 

119 Hoi. I. 218. 
119a Hol. I. 219. 

120 Hoi. I. 218. 



54 Fishe. 

which hath such a propertie, that it will breed no fish at all, & 
if anie be cast into it, they die without recoverie", he is evidently 
combatting some popular superstition concerning enchanted 
lakes when he adds, "But this peradventure may grow throgh 
the accidentall corruption of the water, rather than the naturall 
force of the element it selfe." 120 " And he explains in a very 
rationalistic way those "three little pooles, a mile from Darling- 
ton,. . . .which the people call the Kettles of hell,. . . .as if [the 
devil] should seeth soules of sinfull men and women in them. 
They adde also that the spirits have oft beene heard to crie and 
yell about them .... The truth is ... . that the cole-mines in those 
places are kindled, or if there be no coles, there may a mine of 
some other unctuous matter be set on fire, which being here 
and there consumed, the earth falleth in, and so dooth leave a 
pit. Indeed the water is now and then warme (as they saie) 
and beside that it is not cleere: the people suppose them to be 
an hundred fadam deepe". 121 It must be said, however, that on 
the whole these attempts at rationalistic explanations are rare. 

In Holinshed's attitude towards religious matters, therefore, 
we find uncompromising inherited hatred of the Catholics, and 
a belief, only faintly colored with doubt, in the religious sig- 
nificance of any unusual occurrences in the realm of nature. 
His attitude towards witchcraft remains to be discussed; but 
we shall find it indicating distinctly his adherence to the re- 
ligious conventions of his day. 

120a Hol. I. 218. 
121 Hoi. I. 219. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 55 



Chaptek VII. 
Holinshed's Fondness foe Trite Moralizing; Its Signifi- 
cance. 

We discussed in the last chapter Holinshed's belief in the 
miraculous interference of God in the world. It seems natural 
to notice, in connection with these religious conceptions, his 
fondness for commonplace moral reflection. 

His moralizing is usually pessimistic and melancholy. Some- 
times he is peevishly personal. The following passage illustrates 
this temper : "If the historian be long, he is accompted a triiier : 
if he be short, he is taken for a summister : if he commend, he 
is twighted for a flatterer: if he reproove, he is holden for a 
carper: if he be pleasant, he is noted for a jester: if he be 
grave, he is reckoned for a drooper: if he misdate, he is named 
a falsifier: if he once but trip, he is tearmed a stumbler: so 
that let him beare himselfe in his chronicle as uprightiie and 
as conscionablie as he may possible, yet he shall be sure to And 
them that will be more prest to blab foorth his pelfish faults, 
than they will be readie to blaze out his good deserts." 1 

Again, we come across a quite passionate outburst against 
social follies. "Oh how much cost is bestowed now adaies upon 
our bodies and how little upon our soules! how manie sutes 
of apparell hath the one and how little furniture hath the 
other? how long time is asked in decking up of the first, and 
how little space left wherin to feed the later? how curious, 
how nice also are a number of men and women, and how 
hardlie can the tailor please them in making it fit for their 
bodies? how manie times must it be sent backe againe to him 
that made it? what chafing, what fretting, what reprochfull 
language doth the poore workeman beare awaie? and manie 

1 Hol. VI. 273. See also Hoi. I. 4. 



56 Fislce 

times when he dooth nothing to it at all, yet when it is 
brought home againe it is verie fit and handsome; then must 
we put it on, then must the long seames of our hose be set by 
a plumb-line, then we puffe, then we blow, and finallie sweat 
till we drop, that our clothes may stand well upon us." 2 

At other times it is political dissension he deplores. "But 
what is a king if his subjects be not loiall? What is a realme, 
if the common wealth be divided ? By peace & concord, of small 
beginnings great and famous kingdomes have oft times pro- 
ceeded; whereas by discord the greatest kingdoms have oftner 
bene brought to ruine. And so it proved here, for whilest privat 
quarels are pursued, the generall affaires are utterlie neglected: 
and whilest ech nation seeketh to preferre hir owne aliance, the 
Hand it selfe is like to become a desert." 3 

Now he adjures the "diligent and marking reader both [to] 
muse and moorne, to see how variable the state of this kingdome 
hath beene, & thereby to fall into a consideration of the frailtie 
and uncerteintie of this mortall life, which is no more free 
from securitie, than a ship on the sea in tempestuous weather." 

And in another place, as an instance of this fickleness of for- 
tune, he cites the case of King Henry the First, "whose mirth 
was turned into mone," and whose "pleasures [were] relished 
with pangs of pensifenes, contrarie to his expectation". 6 Or we 
are implored to note the effects of "selfe-love, which rageth 

in men so preposterouslie and all for the maintenance of 

statelie titles, of loftie stiles, of honorable names, and such like 
vanities more light than thistle downe that flieth in the aire".' 

Only twice in his meditation does he touch upon the evils that 
are especially interesting to more enlightened moralists. In one 
place, to our surprise, we read, "Here we see what a band of 

2 Hoi. I. 289. 

3 Hoi. I. 708. 

4 Hoi. I. 72G. 
°Hol. II. 70. 
"Hoi. II. 148. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 57 

calamities doo accompanie and waite upon warre, wherein also 
we have to consider what a traine of felicities doo attend upon 
peace, by an equall comparing of which twaine togither, we may 
casilie perceive in how heavenlie an estate those people be that 
live under the scepter of tranquilitie, and contrariwise what a 
hellish course of life they lead that have sworne their service 
to the sword." 7 The Hague Conference or General Sherman 
could scarcely put it more strongly. It is an odd note in a book 
so many pages of which are devoted to the glorification of Eng- 
lish prowess. Again, we read concerning the famous and popu- 
lar health resort, "But notwithstanding all this, such is the gen- 
erall estate of things in Bath, that the rich men maie spend 
while they will, and the poore beg whilest they list for their 

maintenance and diet so long as they remaine there But 

where shall a man find anie equall regard of poore and rich, 
though God dooth give these his good gifts freelie, & unto both 
alike?" 8 Here, once more, we find a quite modern sentiment ex- 
pressed concerning the unequal distribution of wealth. These 
two instances, however, only throw into stronger relief the con- 
ventional nature of most of his meditations. 

One point that comes out strongly in connection with some 
of these moralizing passages is Holinshed's absolute lack of 
humor. The image of the conscience-stricken knight, dwelt on 
at length in the last chapter, does not at all divert him. The 
tone throughout this description is as portentously grave as 
in the companion-picture of the remorseful servingman whose 
story runs as follows: "And among others that came thither, 

there was a gentleman of great credit and worship who 

having aspied a servingman that had beene there with his mais- 
ter two times, whom he had sharplie tawnted for his great 
and monstrous ruffes, spake unto him verie vehementlie and 
told him that it were better for him to put on sackecloth and 
mourne for his sinnes, than in such abhominable pride to 

7 Hoi. II. 82. 

"Hoi. I. 363. 



58 Fiske 

pranke up himselfe like the divels darling, the verie father of 
pride and lieng, who sought by the exercise of that damnable 
sinne to make himselfe a preie to everlasting torments in helfire. 
Whereupon the servingman, as one prickt in conscience, sore 
sorowed and wept for his offense, rent the band from his necke, 
took a knife and cut it in peeces, and vowed never to weare the 
like againe." 9 This lack of humor is, indeed, a characteristic 
of all Holinshed's work. Occasionally the kings exchange some 
solemn banter; 10 occasionally, too, we run across a grim joke, 
as when, in the Peasants' Eevolt, a bishop, hearing that one of 
his parish was a notorious rebel, "himselfe went to seek [him] as 
one of his sheepe that was lost; not to bring him home to the 
fold, but to the slaughter-house". " As a rule, however, his mood 
is stately and serious. He is far too deeply impressed with the 
importance of the affairs with which he is dealing, and with the 
magnificence of their lordly actors, to unbend his mood ; and he 
feels it necessary to make an elaborate apology when he intro- 
duces the Goat-episode into his account of the trials of Elizabeth 
in her girlhood. "And now", he says, "by the way as digressing, 
or rather refreshing the reader, if it be lawfull in so serious a 

storie occasion heere mooveth me to touch brief elie 

what happened in the same place and time by a certeine merie 
conceited man", 12 and proceeds to the story with a manifestly 
uneasy conscience. 

To state briefly, then, the main point of this chapter, — we 
find Holinshed an inveterate and pessimistic moralizer, dwelling 
constantly on timeworn topics, — fickleness of fortune, woman's 
follies, etc., — rather than on the newer problems; and quite 
untouched by the humane spirit that is interested in investiga- 
ting, rather than in lamenting, social evils. 

s Hol. IV. 433. 
,0 Hol. III. 339. 
"Hoi. II. 746. 
12 Hoi. IV. 130. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 59 

Chapter VIII. 

Holinshed's Treatment of Sensational Manifestations 
of Criminality. 

We may be sure of finding a mind like Holinshed's, with 
its delight in abnormal and astonishing manifestations of the 
physical forces of nature, keenly interested also in criminal of- 
fences, especially murder. 

We read in detail of the gallant deaths of Thomas a Becket," 
and of Gunthildis, the sister of Swaine, "a verie beautifull 

ladie [whol tooke hir death without all f eare, not once 

changing countenance, though she saw hir husband and her 
onelie sonne (a yoong gentleman of much towardnesse) first 
murthered before hir face."" The series of unhappy royal boys 
who met their fate through official villainy especially interests 
him. He describes with pathetic picturesqueness the little 
Kenelm, whose murderers "led him into a thicke wood, and there 
cut off the head from his bodie, an impe by reason of his tender 
yeeres and innocent age and yet thus traitorouslie mur- 
thered without cause or crime"; 15 with revolting detail the tor- 
ture and murder of the unhappy young Alfred, who ended 
"his innocent life to the great shame & obloquie of his cruel 
adversaries"; 16 with fervid indignation the smothering of Ed- 
ward the Fourth's little sons in the Tower. 188 Among these 
upper classes, traditional glamor attaches itself to poisoning 
cases, as in the instance of "Alexander the sixt, who went to 
supper in a vineyard neere the Vatican to rejoise in the delight 
& plesure of the fresh aire, & was suddenlie caried for dead to 
the bishops palace ;" 17 or of the unhappy Saxon Princess Beatrice 

18 Hoi. II. 134-36. 

"Hoi. I. 713. 

16 Hoi. I. 659. 

16 Hoi. I. 735. 

1,a Hoi. III. 401-3. 

17 Hoi. III. 537. 



60 Fishe 

and her weird, horrible execution; 178 or of King John who dis- 
covered a plot to poison him by means of a dish of pears, "by 
reason that such pretious stones as he had about him, cast foorth 
a certeine sweat, as it were bewraieng the poison". 18 All these 
picturesque exhibitions of villainy in high life interest our 
Chronicler, and he invests them with a dignity and romance 
demanded, in his opinion, by the lordly personages involved. 

Far otherwise is it when he comes to crime in low life. For 
all his ponderous solemnity, he has a keen love for the realistic- 
ally sensational, such grewsome matter as fills our daily news- 
papers. Throughout the Chronicle, amid the pomp of royal wars, 
festivities, births, deaths, and marriages, we find slipped in with 
gusto many a spicy deed of blood and violence among the com- 
mon people. Curious little glimpses of life among the humbler 
classes are thus afforded us. We see the canny housewife locking 
up in her cupboard "a bag of monie, amounting to the sum of ten 
pounds stearling" committed to her care "by a little honest man, 
whose name", says the circumspect Chronicler, "I will not dis- 
cover"; and then we watch quite breathlessly her husband who 
"brake open the locke, and tooke out the monie; wherewith," 

sardonically, " he plaied the good fellow all the daies of 

his life. For immediatlie his wife accused him of plaine 

theft," whereupon the Mayor caused him to be adjudged to 
death. 19 Again we shudder at the villainy of "a certeine Breton, 
whom a good honest widow had received into hir house, and 
conceived well of him in opinion, was by hir mainteined of hir 

owne pursse, & she found him of almes and for Gods 

sake. This charitable deed of hirs deserved a devout mind to 
God ward, and a thankfull hart to hir. But (good soule) how 
was she recompensed ? Even murthered in hir bed by the hands 
of that villaine whome so bountifullie she succored, and mother- 
like tendered." Holinshed exults fiercely in the scene that fol- 
lows, when "the women of the same parish and street (as it were 

m Hoi. I. 685. 

18 Hoi. II. 336. 

19 Hoi. IV. 893. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 61 

enraged) came out with stones, staves, kenell doong, and other 
things, wherewith they so bethwackt him on all parts of his 
bodie, that they laid him a stretching, and rid him quite of life. 
In the wreking of this their teene they were so fell and fierce, 

that the comstables with their assistants were not able to 

rescue him out of the women's hands". 20 It is striking to see 
the passionate greed of the royal fratricidal Eichard reflected in 
another humble cottage where, on "the tenth day of November, 
in the citie of Worcester, a cruell and unnaturall brother (as an 
other Cain) murdered his owne naturall and loving brother, 
first, smiting his braines out with an ax, and after cut- 
ting his throte to make him sure, and then buried him under 
the earth of a chimneie, thinking thereby (though wrongfullie) 

quietlie to have injoyed his brothers goods but not long 

after this secret murther comming to light, the murderer was re- 
warded according to his deserts, and to the terror of such un- 
naturall murdering brethren." 21 The little shops with their 
quaint doorways were the scenes of fatal quarrels between mas- 
ters and prentices, a fact illustrated in the case of "a prentise 
of London [who] was hanged on a gibet at the north end of 
Finch lane in London (to the example of others) for that he 
the thirteenth of December had stricken his maister with a 
knife whereof he died." 22 In his description of the poisoning 
cases we find no fairy rings discovering the hidden villainy, as 
in cases involving royalty, and no fair gardens as scene for the 
tragedies. Merely the bald, bare facts are given us, with grim 
mention of the horrid punishments. Toward the end of Eliza- 
beth's reign the tendency toward this species of crime seems to 
have increased among the women of the middle classes, and we 
find numerous instances of such women being burned at Smith- 
field for poisoning their husbands. 22 " 

Strikingly typical of his treatment of these crimes we find 

20 Hoi. III. 172-73. 

21 Hoi. IV. 343. 

22 Hoi. IV. 237. 

22a Hoi. IV. 330, 262, 323. 



62 FisTce 

his story of the murder of Edward Arden of Worcestershire by 
his wife Alice. The story, occupying as it does seven pages of 
his cumbrous volume, 23 is too long to quote in full, Holinshed 
having "thought good to set it foorth somewhat at large, having 

the instructions deliverd to [him] by them, that used 

some diligence to gather the true understanding of the circum- 
stances." 2 ** We have described to us Arden, "a man of a tall 
and comelie personage," and Alice his young wife, "tall, and 
well favoured of shape and countenance," and Mosbie her lover, 
"a tailor by occupation, a blacke swart man, servant to the lord 
North". 23 " Arden, we are told, "perceived right well their mutu- 

all f amiliaritie yet bicause he would not offend hir, and so 

loose the benefit which he hoped to gaine at some of hir freends 

hands", 280 was content not to notice it. We follow Alice first 

to a painter, "who had skill of poisons", 2 " 1 and see her failure 
to accomplish her purpose through some mistake in her manner 
of mixing the draught he gave her with the milk her husband 
was to drink at breakfast. We then see her hunting up an old 

enemy of her husband, to "practise with him how to make 

[Arden] awaie". 286 One by one we see the frustration of their 
various schemes. First at Arden's house in London, 23 * then "on 
Reinea downn," 2Sg then "in a certeine broome close, betwixt Fever- 
sham & the ferrie", 2311 is their hired assassin, Black Will, foiled 
in his bloody intention. At last, in the prospective victim's 
own house in Faversham, we watch the doomed man standing 
unconscious on the very brink of fate. Black Will has been 
conveyed into the house and put into a closet at the end of 

23 Hoi. III. 1024-31. 

*• Hoi. III. 1024. 

ab Hol. III. 1024. 

2,c Hoi. III. 1024-5 

ad Hol. III. 1025. 

286 Hoi. III. 1025. 

28t Hol. III. 1026. 

238 Hoi. III. 1026. 

2,11 Hoi. III. 1027. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed' s Chronicle II 63 

the parlor. 231 From this point on we have as circumstantial 
and sensational an account as need be of the actual murder, an 
account that, except for the quaintness of the language, strik- 
ingly resembles those found in our newspapers. Holinshed was 
quite as willing as any yellow editor of to-day to furnish his 
readers with revolting detail. It differs from the typical mod- 
ern treatment, however, in two features. The story is accom- 
panied by a narrow column of marginal comment in which the 
reader is exorted to "note here the force of feare and a troubled 
conscience" ; or to "marke how the divell will not let his organs 
or instruments let slip either occasion or opportunitie to commit 
most heinous wickednesse" ; or to consider "what a countenance 
of innocencie and ignorance she bore after the murdering of hir 
husband" ; or to reflect "how these malefactors suffered punish- 
ment", or how "God heareth the teares of the oppressed and 
taketh vengeance". 

The second feature of difference is the method by which 
Holinshed invests his tale with the popular supernatural qual- 
ity. After they had killed Arden, "'they tooke the dead bodie, 
and caried it out, to laie it in a field next to the church-yard, and 
joining to his garden wall, through the which he went to the 
church. In the meane time it began to snow, and when they 
came to the garden gate, they remembred that they had forgot- 
ten the kaie, and one went in for it, and finding it at length 
brought it, opened the gate, and caried the corps into the same 

field and laid him downe on his backe streight in his 

night gowne with his slippers on: and betweene one of his 
slippers and his foot, a long rush or two remained. When they 
had thus laid him downe, they returned the same way they 
came through the garden into the house." And after the re- 
moval of the body, lo ! a marvel ! For "in the place where he 
was laid, being dead, all the proportion of his bodie might be 
seene two yeares after and more, so plain as could be, for the 
grasse did not grow where his bodie had touched : but betweene 
his legs, betweene his armes, and about the hollowness of his 

231 Hoi. III. 1028. 



64 Fishe 

necke, and round about his bodie, and where his legs, armes, 
head, or anie other part of his bodie had touched, no grasse 
growed at all of all that time. So that manie strangers came in 
that meane time, beside the townesmen, to see the print of his 
bodie there on the ground in that field". 281 Again, in explana- 
tion of this phenomenon, he resorts to a superstition of the age. 

"Which field he had most cruellie taken from a woman, 

that had beene a widow to one Cooke, and after maried to one 
Richard Eead a mariner, to the great hinderance of hir and hir 
husband the said Eead : for they had long injoyed it by a lease, 
which they had of it for manie yeares, not then expired : never- 
thelesse, he got it from them. For the which, the said Reads 
wife not onelie exclaimed against him, in sheading manie a salt 
teere, but also curssed him most bitterlie even to his face, wish- 
ing manie a vengeance to light upon him, and that all the world 
might woonder on him. Which was thought then to come to 
passe, when he was thus murthered, and laie in that field from 
midnight till the morning: and so all that dale, being the faire 
daie till night, all the which dale there were manie hundreds of 
people came woondering about him." 23 " 

So much for Holinshed's telling of the story. We could 
hardly emphasize better the conventionality of his treatment 
with its sensationalism, its stock-morality, its stock-marvel, and 
its stock-curse, than by turning to the play, "Arden of Fever- 
sham", where the same story is told, the writer being governed, 
however, by a "sense of fact" very different from our Chronicler's. 
Mr. Swinburne has made sufficiently evident the transformation 
in the character of Alice from that of a mere newspaper-murder- 
ess to the possibly "eldest born of that group to which Lady 
Macbeth and Dionyza belong by right of weird sisterhood." She 
has their keen highwrought intellect, their "nerves of steel". 
"But," Swinburne goes on, "the wife of Arden is much less a 
born criminal than these. To her, even in the deepest pit of 
her deliberate wickedness, remorse is natural and redemption 

a i Hoi. III. 1030. 

23k Hoi. III. 1030. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 65 

conceivable. Like the Phaedra of Bacine, and herein so nobly 
unlike the Phaedra of Euripides, she is capable of the deepest 
and bitterest penitence." 281 I think I am not wrong in feeling, 
also, that our poet has with great skill mollified our judgment 
of Alice by introducing into the situation an element of irresist- 
ible fate. Again and again the strangeness of her infatuation is 
dwelt upon. We read of Mosbie in the Chronicle as "a tailor by 
occupation, a blacke swart man, servant to the lord North". 
Alice was gently born. 

"Ay, but to dote on such an one as he 
Is monstrous, Franklin, and intolerable!" 
exclaims Arden in the first act. Alice, indeed, has moments 
when she herself marvels at the depth of her degradation. In 
a moment of anger she says to Mosbie, 

". . . . Base peasant, get thee gone 
And boast not of thy conquest over me, 
Gotten by witchcraft and mere sorcery ! 
For what hast thou to countenance my love, 
Being descended of a noble house, 
And matched already with a gentleman ?"' 
And later, 

"Even in my forehead is thy name ingraven, 
A mean artificer, that lowborn name ! 
I was bewitched ; woe worth the hapless hour 
And all the causes that enchanted me." 
These references to witchcraft are especially significant, and, 
to enforce them, the poet has taken pains to represent Mosbie 
not only as a meanly-born tailor, but also as an intolerably 
vulgar and brutal one. Yet she clings to him with a constancy 
inexplicable alike to herself and to spectators. It is, I think, 
a subtle conception, that by which the writer has idealized the 
mere physical magnetism of this black, swarthy man, bold only 
among women, into a shadowy suggestion of an uncanny power ; 

231 Algernon Charles Swinburne: "A Study of Shakespeare," pp. 
139-140. 



66 Fishe 

yet more subtle is it when, swayed by its influence, Alice seizes 
a prayer-book which Mosbie has found in her hand, and cries, 
"I will do penance for offending thee, 
And burn this prayer-book, where I here use 
The holy word that had converted me. 
See, Mosbie, I will tear away the leaves, 
And all the leaves, and in this golden cover 
Shall thy sweet phrases and thy letters dwell; 
And thereon will I chiefly meditate, 
And hold no other sect but such devotion." 
After this act we see no further softening in Alice toward 
her old-time virtue; and in itself the incident irresistibly sug- 
gests the act of overt insult to sacred objects by which, as sign 
of renunciation of God, the pact with the devil was supposed 
to be sealed. 

In two other points does the delicacy of the playwright's 
conception throw into sharp relief the Philistine quality of the 
Chronicle story. The first is his treatment of Arden; the sec- 
ond, his transformation of the stock-curse of Bead's wife which 
was alluded to in the Chronicle. Arden 's figure is relieved from 
the sordid atmosphere that surrounds it in Holinshed's version. 
Not to mercenary motives, but to his fearful knowledge of his 
own peculiar temperament, seems to be laid his determined 
closing of his eyes to his wife's unfaithfulness. He thus main- 
tains a certain logic of position. This determined self-decep- 
tion, while weak in itself, is yet partially justified by the fact 
that we know, as he no doubt dimly recognizes also, that with 
his gloomy, brooding temperament full conviction of his wife's 
guilt will mean madness. The moment will inevitably come when, 
able no longer to deceive himself, he will sink before our eyes 
into the alternative raving and stupor of melancholy madness. 
From this fate he is saved only by death. In clinging fo 
his belief in his wife he is clinging to his sanity; and in this 
portrayal of him it will be seen how completely the dramatist 
has transformed the Chronicle motive for his longsuffering. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 67 

There remains to be noted the fashion above referred to 
in which the dramatist has transformed the stock-curses of 
the Chronicle. These stock-curses are scattered here and there 
throughout Holinshed. "King Henry [the Second] ... .curssed 

even the verie daie in which he was borne, and gave to his 

sonnes Gods cursse and his," when he found their names at the 
head of the list of confederates against him; 24 and, on like oc- 
casion, William the Conqueror also hurled imprecations upon 

"Robert his sonne and the time that ever he begat him" 

when "the yoong man, being of an ambitious nature, and now 
pricked forward by the sinister counsell of his adherents," 
sought "to obteine that by violence, which he thought would be 
verie long yer he should atteine by curtesie". 25 We read con- 
cerning Earl Berthred, slain in battle by the Picts, that in his 
death "the curse of the Irish men, whose countrie in the daies 

of king Egfrid he had cruellie wasted, was thought at this 

time to take place". 28 And the effectiveness of these dire ana- 
themas is again made apparent in the case of Ethelbert, killed 
by King Offa, in reference to which catastrophe we read that 
"when the bride Alfreda understood the death of hir liked make 

and bridegrome, she curssed father and mother, and as it 

were inspired with the spirit of prophesie, pronounced that 
woorthie punishment would shortlie fall on hir wicked mother 
for hir heinous crime committed in persuading so detestable a 
deed: and according to hir woords it came to passe, for hir 
mother died miserablie within three moneths after." 27 All this 
is commonplace enough. In the hands of the playwright, as 
Symonds has pointed out, these curses become vivid and color- 
ful things. The highwayman Shakebag's "form of registering 
a vow to be revenged on one who has played him false is char- 
acteristic" when he says, 27a 

24 Hoi. II. 198. 

25 Hoi. II. 19. 

26 Hoi. I. 635-6. 

27 Hoi. I. 649. 

27a J. A. Symonds : "Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English 
Drama," p. 449. 



68 Fisle 

"And never let me draw a sword again, 
Nor prosper in the twilight, cockshut light, 
When I would fleece the wealthy passenger, 
If I, the next time that I meet the slave, 
Cut not the nose from off the coward's face !" 
The same hue of his trade colors the imprecations of Eead, 
the seaman (in the Chronicle, of Eead's wife), deprived by Ar- 
den, we remember, of his plot of ground. We feel in his ex- 
clamations the rattle and clash of the thunder itself. 
" . Were I upon the sea, 

As oft I have in many a bitter storm, 
And saw a dreadful southern flaw at hand, 
The pilot quaking at the doubtful storm, 
And all the sailors praying on their knees, 
Even in that fearful time would I fall down, 
And ask of God, whate'er betide of me, 

Vengeance on Arden ! 

This charge I'll leave with my distressful wife, 
My children shall be taught such prayers as these; 
And thus I go, but leave my curse with thee." 
A glance at this play, then, with its searching subtlety of 
conception, makes extremely obvious the commonplace quality 
of the treatment of the story by Holinshed. Both playwright 
and chronicler had the same tale to tell. Each colored it more 
or less. The playwright exalted and individualized it by show- 
ing us natures blindly at variance with themselves and with 
fate. The chronicler conventionalized it by his tendency to 
emphasize revolting and gory detail, the tendency filling the 
Elizabethan stage and the Elizabethan literature with scenes 
of blood and crime; by his credulous acceptance of cheap 
popular superstitions; and by his inveterate habit of pointing 
out obvious morals. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 69 

Chapter IX. 

Holinshed's Attitude Towards Witchcraft and Magic. 
A. The Witch. 

One familiar with the manner in which the witchcraft 
mania raged at intervals through Europe for five centuries, 
will not be surprised to find a vivid reflection of it in the 
Chronicle. This superstition appears under two aspects: first, 
in actual accounts of witches or those dealing with them; 
second, in the interpretation of events in terms of magic. Of 
the former class is the first mention of witchcraft we find in 
the Chronicle, namely, in 1115, when "William Peverell of Not- 
ingham a noble man and of great possessions was disherited by 
the king for sorcerie and witchcraft, which he had practised to kill 
Eanulfe earle of Chester". 28 It is significant that, in this early 
stage of the terror, death had not yet been prescribed as penalty. 
Almost all the favorite tenets of the doctrine find a place in 
Holinshed's pages. In 1318 "a naughtie fellow called John 

Poidras a tanners son " having given "f oorth that 

he was sonne and right heire of king Edward the first, and 
that by means of a false nursse he was stolne out of his cradle 

at the houre of his death confessed that in his 

house he had a spirit in likenesse of a cat, which amongst 
other things assured him that he should be king of England". 29 
As this fellow had tried to deprive the little Prince of his 
throne, so, in the latter s desolate and deposed old age, the Earl 
of Kent, his brother, manceuvered to enthrone him again on the 
assurance of a friar, one Thomas Dunhed, that his familiar 
spirit had declared to him that Edward was still alive in 
prison. 30 This person brought upon himself death for his devil- 
ish machinations, as did "William Eandoll [who was hanged] 
for conjuring to know where treasure was hid in the earth," 31 

28 Hoi. II. 112. 

29 Hoi. II. 557. 
80 Hoi. II. 597. 
31 Hoi. IV. 433. 



70 FisTce 

and a servant of the Duke of Clarence put to death for sorcery 
and enchantment. 32 We see one weird witch "about the middest 

of the night rosting upon a woodden broch an image of 

wax at the tier, resembling in each feature the kings person", a 
process greatly detrimental to the king's health. 83 The liabil- 
ity of any forlorn old woman to the charge of witchcraft is 
well illustrated in the case of the unhappy creature who, "be- 
ing verie aged, was also accused of witcherie" in alluring a 
young man into the delusion that he was Christ; 34 a proceeding 
which reminds us of a declaration on the part of the witch- 
persecutors that wrinkles "are a strong presumption for witch- 
craft." Finally, in the Chronicle we have a detailed account 
of a witch's trial and condemnation, in the case of one "J one 

Cason arreigned for witchcraft and executed for in- 

vocating of wicked spirits for that she upon the 

first of Aprill, in the seven and twentith yeare of queene Eliza- 
beth, and at diverse daies and times since, the art of witchcraft 
and inchantment had used, and upon wicked spirits had invo- 
cated and called"." To this case we will return later. 

Along with this thread of superstition there runs, of course, 
a corresponding thread of recognized imposture carried on by a 
series of girl-adventurers, who almost rival in interest the group 
of boy-pretenders to the throne which we noted in another 
chapter. We read in Elizabeth's reign of a certain "Agnes 
Bridges a maiden about the age of twentie yeares, and Eachell 

Pinder, a wench about eleven or twelve yeares old, who 

counterfeited to be possessed by the divell (whereby they had not 
onelie marvellouslie deluded manie people, both men and women, 
but also diverse such persons as otherwise seemed to be of good 
wit and understanding) " 1,Ba and of "Elizabeth Croft, a wench 
about eighteene yeares old, [whol stood upon a scaffold at Paules 

82 Hoi. III. 346. 

88 Hoi. V. 234. 

"Hoi. II. 352. 

86 Hoi. IV. 891. 

85,1 Hoi. IV. 325. 



Conventionalism in Holinslied's Chronicle II 71 

crosse all the sermon time, where she confessed, that she being 
mooved by diverse lewd persons thereunto, had upon the four- 
teenth of March last before passed, counterfeited certeine 
speaches in an house without Aldresgate of London, through the 
which the people of the whole citie were woonderfullie molested, 
for that all men might heare the voice, but not see hir person. 
Some said it was an angell, some a voice from heaven, some the 
Holie-ghost, &c. This was called the spirit in the wall : shee had 

laine whistling in a strange whistle made for that purpose 

then where there diverse companions confederat with hir, which 
putting themselves amongst the prease, tooke upon them to in- 
terpret what the spirit said". 88 A more extensive series of frauds 
was carried on by Elizabeth Barton who, "through sicknesse, be- 
ing oftentimes brought as it were into a transe, whereby hir 

visage and countenance became marvellouslie altered at 

length learned to counterfeit such maner of transes 

so that she practised, used, and shewed unto the people diverse 
marvellous and sundrie alterations of the sensible parts of hir 
bodie, craftilie uttering in hir said feigned and false transes, 
diverse and manie counterfeit, vertuous, and holie words, tend- 
ing to the rebuke of sin". 87 

So far we have been dealing with the historical witch, if 
we may so call her, of whom the type is the woman old or 
young, in cottage or hall, who pursues magical practices to the 
detriment of the surrounding community. We have also in 
the Chronicle, however, a glimpse of the fantastic, non-human 
creature whom the popular fancy, in the excess of its exuberant 
terror, created to inhabit wood and heath. There is a suggestion 
of this weird connection with the elements in the reference to 
the women in the Isle of Man who "would oftentimes sell wind 
to the mariners, inclosed under certeine knots of thred, with 
this injunction, that they which bought the same, should for a 
great gale undoo manie, and for the lesse a fewer or smaller 

88 Hoi IV. 56. 

87 Hoi. III. 789-90. 



72 Fishe 

number" [of these knots]. 38 But the typical witch of this un- 
earthly sort is found in the account of the two immortal Scotch- 
men journeying "towards Fores, where the king then laie, [who 
as] they went sporting by the waie togither without other com- 
panie, save onelie themselves, passing thorough the woods and 
fields" were met "suddenlie in the middest of a laund" by "three 
women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of 
elder world, whome when they attentivelie beheld, woondering 
much at the sight, the first of them spake and said; "All haile 
Makbeth, thane of Glammis" (for he had latelie entered into that 
dignitie and office by the death of his father Sinell). The sec- 
ond of them said; "Haile Makbeth thane of Cawder/" But the 
third said; "All haile Makbeth that heereafter shalt be king of 
Scotland". 89 

Of the second class of references to witchcraft in the Chron- 
icle, namely, those which interpret events in terms of magic, 
we have numerous instances. We read of the illness of the 

Earl of Essex in Dublin, in 1576, that "some thought that 

he should be bewitched, as that countrie is much given to such 
dailie practises." 40 We find also the account of pathetic prepa- 
rations made for the birth of a child to Queen Mary the First : 
of "a cradle verie sumptuouslie and gorgeouslie trimmed" ; of 

"midwives, rockers, nurses prepared and in readinesse" 

against the time that "this yoong maister should come into the 

world" ; of "bels roong, bonefiers and processions made 

guns shot off upon the river", in honor of a false report 

of his birth, which was so firmly believed that "divers preachers, 
namelie one the parson of saint Anne within Aldersgate, after 
procession and Te Deum soong, tooke upon him to describe the 
proportion of the child, how faire, how beautifull, and great 
a prince it was, as the like had not beene seene." When the 
story of the birth of a prince was discovered to be false, the 

38 Hoi. I. 66. 

39 Hoi. V. 268. 
iu Hoi. VI. 386. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 73 

bewitchment of the queen was one of the theories soberly ad- 
vanced to account for the frustration of the national hope. 41 

The most notable instance, however, of this interpretation 
of events by reference to superhuman agency is in the case of 
Joan of Arc. Of her we read, "Unto Charles the Dolphin, at 
Chinon as he was in verie great care and studie how to wrestle 

against the English nation was caried a yoong wench of an 

eighteene yeeres old, called Jone Are, by name of hir father (a 
sorie sheep heard) James of Are, and Isabell hir mother, brought 

up poorelie in their trade of keeping cattell Of favour was 

she counted likesome, of person stronglie made and manlie, of 
courage great, hardie, and stout withall, an understander of 
counsels though she were not at them, great semblance of chas- 
titie both of bodie and behaviour, the name of Jesus in hir mouth 
about all hir businesses, humble, obedient, and fasting diverse 
daies in the weeke." 41 * As proofs of her use of power given her 

by "wicked spirits whome she uttered to be our Ladie 

saint Katharine, and saint Annes, that came and gave hir 

commandements from God hir maker, as she kept hir fathers 
lambs in the fields", 41b he declared that "the companie that toward 
the Dolphin did conduct hir, through places all dangerous, as 
holden by the English, where she never was afore, all the waie 
and by nightertale safelie did she lead"; also that "from saint 
Kjatharins church of Fierbois in Touraine (where she never had 
beene and knew not) in a secret place there among old iron, ap- 
pointed she hir sword to be sought out and brought hir, that 
with five floure delices was graven on both sides, wherewith she 
fought & did manie slaughters by hir owne hands". 410 The tell- 
ing of the story culminates in a torrent of abuse of which the 
main themes are "hir pernicious practises of sorcerie and witch - 
erie", 41d and French deification of this "damnable sorcerer 

41 Hoi. IV. 82-3. 
418 Hoi. III. 163. 
41b Hoi. III. 171. 
" e Hoi. III. 163. 
4,<1 Hoi. III. 171. 



74 FisJce 

suborned by satan" ; 41e and he dismisses the subject with a scorn- 
ful, "And thus much of this gentle J one, and of hir good ora- 
tours that have said so well for hir ! Now judge as ye list." 41 ' 

Turning to the drama for a moment, we are faced by two 
interesting facts : first, that through the plays runs the same 
grewsome thread of popular superstition; second, that they 
contain at least one expression of keen protest against the bar- 
barity engendered by this belief. To deal with the first point. 
We find Peter of Pomfret with his prophecies" 8 taken bodily 
over into "King John," as also is Elinor Cobham, with her 
invocating of spirits and her waxen images, 4111 into "The Con- 
tentions". As in the Chronicle, 411 Jane Shore is accused in 
"The True Tragedy of Richard the Third" of withering Rich- 
ard's arm with her magic. The suspicion of witchcraft as instru- 
mental in bringing about the passion of Edward the Fourth for 
the charming Elizabeth Grey, whom we saw in the Chronicle, 
is used in "Edward the Fourth" by the king's mother to sharpen 
the sting of her taunts at the new queen. These floating allu- 
sions to the popular notions are common throughout these 
Chronicle plays, possibly the most interesting being found in 
"Edward the Third" and in "Perkin Warbeck." In the first 
play Warwick, sent to his (Warwick's) own daughter to carry 
the message of the king's unlawful love for her, cries out, 
"I am not Warwick, as thou think'st I am, 
But an attorney from the court of hell; 
That thus have housed my spirit in his form, 
To do a message to thee from the king"; 
a wonderfully apt use of the popular superstition about the 
devil's power to take possession of the human form. In "Per- 
kin Warbeck," we have an interesting insight into the manner 

" e Hoi. III. 172. 

41f Hoi. III. 172. 

"*Hol. II. 311. 

4,h Hoi. IV. 809. 

411 Hoi. III. 383. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 75 

in which Ford mercifully echoes the idea of the opponents of the 
witch persecution; namely, that the confessions of the witch 
often were based merely on delusion. 

"Thus witches, 
Possessed, even to their deaths deluded, say 
They have been wolves and dogs, and sailed in 

egg-shells 
Over the sea, and rid on fiery dragons, 
Passed in the air more than a thousand miles, 
All in the night: — the enemy of mankind 
Is powerful, but false." 
In distinction from the everyday village-witch, the wild and 
uncanny being, whom the Chronicle represents as meeting Mac- 
beth and Banquo on the moor, appears again in Shakespere's 
"Macbeth." We also meet her in "The Witches of Lancashire" 
as a hare ranging through the gloomy Forest of Pendle, "so 
called", says James Crossley, "from the celebrated mountain of 

that name the declivity of which stretches in a long but 

interrupted descent of about five miles, to the water of Pendle, 
a barren and dreary tract". 413 She likewise inhabits the uncanny 
wood that Jonson has created in his "The Sad Shepherd". Of 
her we read that 

"Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell, 
Down in a pit, o'ergrown with brakes and briars, 
Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey 
Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground." 
Near her abode, within 

"... the stocks of trees, white faies do dwell, 

And span-long elves that dance about a pool, 

With each a little changeling in their arms ! 

The airy spirits play with falling stars, 

And mount the sphere of fire to kiss the moon, 

While she sits reading by the glow-worm's light, 

ai Introduction to T. Potts's "Discovering of Witches in the County 
of Lancaster." 



76 FisTce 

Or rotten wood, o'er which the worm has crept, 
The baneful schedule of her nocent charms;" 
while around her flit 

" . blue fire-drakes in the sky, 
And giddy Hitter-mice with leather wings!" 
As dainty and idealized as this weird, lovely scene is her little 
attendant spirit, Puck-Hairy, who loves to "dance about the for- 
est and firk it like a goblin". We have here the blossoming 

into a realm of pure poetry of the conception of Jone Cason, the 
village plague. 

It is noticeable, also, in this connection, that the impostor- 
girls we read of in the Chronicle who, as spirits in the wall, 
deceived the people with strange whistlings, or counterfeited 
trances, emerge grown-up into such plays as Lyly's "Mother 
Bombie" and Heywood's "The Wise Women of Hogsdon." 

The case that chiefly interests us at present, however, is that 
of Jone Cason above mentioned. It typically illustrates the 
various phases of the popular superstition. We glance into the 
Inn and see the mother watching her sick child. "After hir 
said child had beene sicke, languishing by the space of thir- 
teene dates, a travellor came into hir house, to the end to drinke 
a pot of ale (for she kept an alehouse) who seeing the lament- 
able case and pitious griefe of the child, called hir unto him 
saieng ; Hostesse, I take it that your child is bewitched. Where- 
unto she answered, that she for hir part knew of no such mat- 
ter. Well (said the ghest) if you thinke it to be so, doo no 
more but take a tile from over the lodging of the partie sus- 
pected, and laie it in a hot fier : and if she have bewitched the 
child, the tile will sparkle and Hie round about the cradle where 
the child lieth. Now she, conceiving that travellors have good 

experience in such matters, did steale a tile from the house 

of the said Jone Cason and laied it in the fier besides the 

cradle, which soone after sparkled about the house, even accord- 
ing to her said ghests information. And within short space, the 
saide Jone (being the suspected partie) came into this house. . . . 
to see how the child did, which, (soone after hir comming) 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 77 

looked full in hir face, and had not lifted up hir eie, nor looked 
abrode all the night precedent; but within foure houres after 
died : so as by the circumstance of that evidence, she thought 

it might plainelie appeare that the said Jone had bewitched 

hir child to death. Neverthelesse, the prisoner did absolutlie 
denie anie thing doone, or purposed by hir to have been doone 
in this behalfe. Howbeit, to pursue this matter to proofe, and 

hir to death other seven persons were all deposed ; by 

whome it was affirmed constantlie and approved manifestlie, 
that to the house of one Freeman (whose wife the said Jone 
Cason then was) not latelie but diverse years since resorted a 
little thing like a rat (but more reddish) ." And so the story runs 
on. It represents the case of many a forlorn creature sent to 
death on like charges. Again and again we hear the same tale 
of the sick child, the stolen tile, the spiteful neighbors, the 
familiar spirit, the pitiful, bewildered admission that such "a 
little vermin, being of colour reddish, of stature less than a rat, 
and furnished with a brode taile," had haunted the house, — an 
admission joined always to a firm denial of guilt, — the clerical 
hounding of the unhappy creature to confession, the execution 
at last. 41 " 

Such are the beliefs Holinshed held concerning the witch- 
craft question. Nothing can better illustrate the blind con- 
ventionality of such views than to contrast them with those 
of men who had struggled out of the passive acceptance of 
tradition into some intellectual solution of the troublesome 
problem. Of these men we have chosen two for consideration, 
one a country clergyman, George Giffard, the other a London 
playwright, Thomas Dekker. 

This George Giffard, who published in 1593 a little book 
called "A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft," be- 
lieved as firmly as did Holinshed himself in witches and in their 
familiar spirits. Yet so far had he thought things out toward 
modern conceptions that he had, to his own satisfaction, reduced 
the figure of the witch, looming portentous in the mind of the 

4,k Hoi. IV. 891-893. 



78 Fiske 

rustic community, to that of a forlorn and powerless old woman. 
And while maintaining as firmly as Holinshed that many of 
these old women did actually deserve death for the impiety of 
holding communication with evil spirits, he yet safeguarded ac- 
cused persons by advocating a course of legal procedure so just 
and reasonable that its adoption would have made absolutely im- 
possible any further execution for witchcraft. So interesting is 
this process of reasoning that we will dwell upon it in some de- 
tail, for the purpose of contrasting its intellectual independence 
and originality with the passive acquiescence of Holinshed. 

His book opens with a chance meeting on a highway of 
Daniel and Samuel, two English villagers. The latter con- 
fesses that he is troubled in his mind, and begs Daniel to go 
home with him and talk things over. Daniel says that, being 
out on business, he cannot; but finally convinced by Samuel's 
sensible remark that on a business errand "four or five hours 
are not so much," he yields, and they go back to Samuel's 
cottage. There they find M. B., the schoolmaster, "a good 
pretie scholler in the Latine tongue," as Samuel, deprecat- 
ing his own lack of learning, declares. For Giffard's purpose, 
the group could scarcely have been better chosen; the country 
school-master, stiffly advancing all the conventional popular 
views; the rustic Samuel, whose dull simplicity makes it pos- 
sible for the author to repeat himself as much as he likes, and 
Daniel (of course Giffard himself), suave, omniscient, with an 
appalling knowledge of the Scriptures. 

M. B., fairly representing Holinshed, voices with the help 
of Samuel all the accepted notions. The witch is a portentous 
and powerful being having at her command one or more fam- 
iliar spirits to inflict injury upon those who have offended her. 
These little beings, by the way, Giffard with unconscious lit- 
erary instinct makes quite attractive, little "crabbe-fish", for in- 
stance, real household pets, lying in a pot of "soft and warme 
wool," fed delectably on cream and chicken, and reluctantly tear- 
ing themselves away at the command of the witch to ply their 
mischievous tasks in the neighbor's cornfield. Daniel's reply to 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 79 

this view is uncompromising. These familiar spirits are not at 
all the subservient imps that M. B. imagines. As a matter of 
fact, he ingeniously declares, when the Scriptures speak of the 
devil as a roaring lion or a great red dragon, they are merely 
using a figure of speech to indicate armies and multitudes of 
devils all of equal power. When, therefore, a witch enters into 
confederacy with one of these, she has at her side no insignifi- 
cant fiendlet, but incarnate diabolical power of supreme dimen- 
sions. Satan himself it is who not only in the beginning stirs up 
in her heart hatred and malice, but who dictates, also, the very 
form of revenge that she shall practice upon those she dislikes. 
She merely appears to herself and to others to have conceived 
and planned the malicious errands on which he prompts her to 
send him. Far from his mistress, she is his veriest slave. 

The question then naturally comes up why the devil should 
choose to assume insignificance of form. Daniel answers that 
it is "even of subtletie". In the first place, by making it seem 
that helpless old women are responsible for the inflicting of in- 
jury, he can cause innocent blood to be shed, which above all 
things he delights in. Second, and far more important, he 
can thus turn the hearts of so-called bewitched people away from 
the true cause of their misfortunes, namely, their sins, to "set 
all on a broyle against old women" ; and can move them, more- 
over, to go for relief on vain and even impious errands. 

To make this clear, he explains that "the raising of tem- 
pests, the blasting of corn, the laming of men, the killing of 
children," etc., — with which achievements, in his connection 
with the witch, the devil is chiefly charged, — are merely devices 
used to cloak his far deeper and blacker design, which is nothing 
less than the damnation of souls. God, in his judgment of the 
wicked or his testing of the righteous, sometimes lets people 
pass into the hands of Satan for a time. Sometimes Satan, who 
except by God's permission would be powerless, acts independ- 
ently of the witch, as in the cases of Job and of Saul. But often 
he chooses to seem to be sent by a witch, since thus the afflicted 
people are moved thereby rather to rage against the witch than 



80 Fishe 

to lament their misdeeds; and seek remedy, not by repentance 
and humiliation before God, but by running to cunning men 
and women. 

These cunning men and women, who are popularly supposed 
to undo in benevolent fashion the work of the witches, are 
Daniel's next object of attack. M. B. gathers himself together 
for a spirited defense of these philanthropic persons. If, as 
Daniel insists, they are helped in their remedial advice by devils, 
not by the spirit of Moses or by some good angel as was popularly 
supposed, how on earth can Daniel explain it ? If the devil, act- 
ing apparently through a witch, has sent disease through a man's 
flock, will he, acting through the cunning woman, unwitch the 
flock by teaching the farmer to burn an animal alive? Or if 
one is haunted by an evil spirit, or possessed by a devil, will 
another devil be likely to teach the cunning woman the holy 
charm which shall drive the first devil away? "Our Savior 
saith," quotes M. B. triumphantly, "that Satan does not drive 
out Satan, for then his kingdom would be divided and would 
not stand !" Daniel, nothing daunted, says that the whole mat- 
ter is perfectly simple. The devils may seem to be working 
against each other, but really they are working together to a 
common end. Take the man, for instance, who burned an ani- 
mal alive at the direction of the cunning man. The devil 
troubling the flock willingly ceases when the animal is burned, — 
indeed he may be also the very devil who gives the direction, — 
in order that the unhappy man, who has brought this trouble 
upon himself by means of his sins, may not see that the proper 
thing for him to do is to humble himself before God in true 
repentance. Again, take the case of the man out of whom a 
devil has been driven, according to common rumor, by means 
of "charms compounded of strange speeches and the names of 
God intermingled," taught by the cunning woman. What, says 
Daniel, can Satanic power desire more than that holy things 
should be thus abused through such "horrible prophaning of the 
most blessed name of God, and the Holy Scriptures"? More- 
over, Satan is not driven out at all, but willingly ceases troubling 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 81 

the body in order that he may thus the more establish this im- 
pious art of conjuration, — the art practised by the heathen and 
absolutely forbidden to the Israelites, — whereby to draw men 
quite "from God even to worship himselfe, by seeking help 
at the hands of divels". 

The conclusion reached by Giffard is a most startling one 
to the orthodox believer. The so-called black witch is an ab- 
solutely harmless member of the community. All the evils 
that the people lay at her door would come to them anyway, 
even if all the so-called witches on earth were burned, since 
the devil, by permission of God, is their real instigator. It 
is the cunning woman, the so-called white witch, who is the real 
menace to society. She it is who by her heathenish charms and 
conjurations blinds her community to the real source of security, 
namely, God. 

The black witch, then, is not at all responsible for the least 
of the harms so generally laid at her door. Inasmuch, however, 
as she is guilty of league and communication with devils, she is 
deserving of death. This Daniel admits. He insists strenuously, 
however, upon the necessity of having absolutely conclusive evi- 
dence of her guilt; and the impossibility of getting such evi- 
dence on matters so dubious and obscure does away, in his opin- 
ion, with any legitimate possibility of execution for witchcraft. 

Such is the line of argument followed by George Giffard. 
Quaint as it is, and credulous of many a superstition, it yet il- 
lustrates perfectly the point. It shows a mind vigorous and 
original rebelling against the barbarous treatment of a large 
class of his fellow-beings, and working its way logically out 
towards a theory the adoption of which would have reduced to 
a minimum the baleful results of one of the most active of med- 
iaeval superstitions. 

The other literary expression of gradually-evolving enlight- 
ened sentiment concerning the witchcraft problem is found in 
Dekker's "The Witch of Edmonton." In the writer's protrayal 
of the progress of a woman's soul towards ruin, a portrayal 
marked by delicate sympathy for the wretched creature far more 



82 FisTce 

victim than sinner, he protests as gallantly against the popular 
madness as did Giffard himself. I can scarcely better illus- 
trate my point, namely, the blank conventionality of Holin- 
shed's attitude in the matter, than by quoting Symond's fine 
passage dealing with this play, a passage which recognizes dis- 
criminatingly Dekker's gentler spirit. 

"This want of cohesion is no drawback to the force and 
pathos of Mother Sawyer's portrait; perhaps the best picture 
of a witch transmitted to us from an age which believed firmly 
in witchcraft, but drawn by men whose humanity was livelier 
than their superstition. From the works of our Elizabethan 
Dramatists we might select studies of witch life more imagin- 
ative, more ghastly, more grotesque: Middleton's Hecate and 
Stadlin, Marston's Etrichtho, Jonson's Maudlin, Shakspere's 
weird sisters and Sycorax. None of these, however, are so true 
to common life; touched with so fine a sense of natural justice. 
The outcast wretchedness which drove old crones to be what 
their cursed neighbors fancied them, is painted here with truly 
dreadful realism. We see the witch in making, watch the per- 
secutions which convert her from a village pariah to a potent 
servant of the devil, peruse her arguments in self-defence, and 
follow her amid the jeers and hootings of the rabble to her 
faggot-grave. Mother Sawyer first appears upon the stage 
gathering sticks: 

And why on me ? Why should the envious world 
Throw all their scandalous malice upon me? 
Cause I am poor, deformed, and ignorant, 
And like a bow buckled and bent together 
By some more strong in mischief than myself, 
Must I for that be made a common sink 
For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues 
To fall and run into? Some call me witch; 
And being ignorant of myself, they go 
About to teach me how to be one; urging 
That my bad tongue, by their bad usage made so, 
Forspeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 83 

Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse. 
This they enforce upon me; and in part 
Make me to credit it. 

Beaten before our eyes by a brutal peasant, she falls to cursing, 

and stretches out her heart's desire toward the unknown power 

'more strong in mischief than herself : 

What is the name? Where, and by what art learned, 
What spells, what charms or invocations, 
May the thing called Familiar be purchased? 

The village rabble fall upon her, lash her with their leathern 

belts, and din the name of witch into her ears, until the name 

becomes a part of her : 

I have heard old beldams 
Talk of familiars in the shape of mice, 
Eats, ferrets, weasles, and I wot not what, 
That have appeared, and sucked, some say, their blood ; 
But by what means they came acquainted with them, 
I now am ignorant. Would some power, good or bad, 
Instruct me which way I might be revenged 
Upon this churl, I'd go out of myself, 
And give this fury leave to dwell within 
This ruined cottage, ready to fall with age! 
Abjure all goodness, be at hate with prayer, 
And study curses, imprecations, 
Blasphemous speeches, oaths, destested oaths, 
Or anything that's ill : so I might work 
Eevenge upon this miser, this black cur, 
That barks and bites, and sucks the very blood 
Of me, and of my credit. 'Tis all one 
To be a witch, as to be counted one. 
Vengeance, shame, ruin light upon that canker ! 

As the devil himself, later on in the play, observes: 
. Thou never art so distant 
From an evil spirit, but that thy oaths, 
Curses and blasphemies pull him to thine elbow. 



84 FisTce 

This Mother Sawyer now experiences; for the familiar she has 
been invoking, starts up beside her in the form of a black dog: 

Ho ! have I found thee cursing ? Now thou art 

Mine own. 
From him she learns the formula by which he may be sum- 
moned, seals their compact by letting him suck blood from her 

veins, and proceeds to use him against her enemies 

The part, from beginning to ending, is terribly sustained. Not 
one single ray of human sympathy or kindness falls upon the 
abject creature. She is alone in her misery and sin, abandoned 
to the black delirium of God-forsaken anguish." 42 

So much for Giffard and Dekker. In scarcely any other 
way, I think, could we so distinctly emphasize the conventional- 
ity of the Chronicler's attitude towards the witch-superstition as 
by this comparison of it with the enlightenment and sympathy 
expressed in the works of our clergyman and our playwright. 

B. The Magician. 

The magician, too, that academic witch, looms uncannily 
up through the pages of our Chronicle. 

It is interesting to glance from the commanding figure of 
Eobert of Sicily who, in dignified and royal seclusion, quite 
comfortably this side the line marking the bounds of forbidden 
knowledge, read in the heavens the forshadowed fate of the 
King of France at Cressy, 43 to that of Peter Walker, learned 
priest of Worcester, "publikelie at Paules crosse. . . .burning his 
books and instruments of such [magic] arts"* 8 " and then on to the 
wild cave-dwelling hermit, Peter of Pomf ret, who lost his life on 
account of a certain prophecy concerning King John. 48 " It is 
strange that the Chronicler, with his keen love for the striking 
and picturesque, has been satisfied with colorless mention of 

** J. A. Symonds : "Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Drama", 
pp. 478-483. 

4S Hol. II. 610. 

"* Hoi. IV. 724. 

• Hoi. II. 311. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 85 

these magicians who laid so strong hold upon the imagination of 
dramatic writers. There must have been current more or less 
speculation about the portentous and awful shapes with which the 
Worcester priest communicated, as well as about the queer little 
creatures, cats, rats or "crabbe-fish",who were the familiar spir- 
its of the witches. Yet of this he strangely gives us little. 
Possibly this may be accounted for by the fact that the alleged 
interests and achievements of magicians are chiefly connected 
with the ever widening field of speculative and scientific knowl- 
edge, while those of the witch about whom he chats so vividly 
passed naturally into the current gossip of the day. 

The drama, as has been said, displays far more interest in 
this figure; and the first point to notice is the way in which, 
in "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay," "John a Kent and John 
a Cumber," and "The Merry Devil of Edmonton," the writers 
have, as has often been pointed out, belittled the traditional 
deeds of magicians. Compared with the petty deeds of the 
witch who loves "to make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their 
farrow," the achievements of the magicians loomed large in the 
popular imagination. In "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay," 
however, the hero's doings are insignificant enough; John a 
Kent merely makes straight some tangled love affairs; while 
Fabell's achievements in "The Merry Devil of Edmonton" con- 
sist only in compelling his spirits to "dance nightly jigs" to 

make "the carriers' jades cast their heavy packs," "the 

milkmaids' cuts turn the wenches off," and "the frank and 

merry London 'prentices, that come for cream and lusty country 

cheer lose their way". So striking, indeed, in these three 

plays is this disparagement of the men who can make "the great 
arch-ruler, potentate of hell, tremble," at whose commands the 
imps of hell run obediently as at a real authority, that some 
critics have suggested that "Friar Bacon," at least, is a burlesque 
of Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." 

If the magicians in these three plays are practically travesties 
of the figures sketched slightly in Holinshed, the heroes of 
Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus" and Shakespere's "The Tempest" are 
as certainly superb idealizations of it. Faustus in his tower, 



86 Fiske 

gloomy, distraught, the tragic figure of Mephistopheles looming 
vaguely beside him, Prospero in his enchanted island, working 
out serenely a philosophy of life based upon the magical power 
he possesses, display alike the power of supreme poetic imagin- 
ation playing upon the popular tradition touched so lighty and 
conventionally by our Chronicler. 

C. The Devil. 

If Holinshed has somewhat ignored the magician, he is far 
from displaying like indifference to the conception of the devil, 
that being so intimately confederate with both wizard and 
witch. Indeed how could he, when the friar confessing you 
might be some manifestation of him, or your daughter might 
elope any minute with an incubus? 

In the Chronicle the fiend appears either as bearing evident 
marks of his infernal origin, or as a human being, or as a small 
animal. We need not dwell on the last case, since we have 
already illustrated it sufficiently in the case of Jone Cason and 
her familiar. The appearance of a devil in human form is 
usually, in the Chronicles, portentous of ruinous storm or 
some other calamity. We read, on Corpus Christi daie at even- 
song time, the divell appeared in a towne of Essex called 

Danburie, entring into the church in likenesse of a greie frier, 
behaving himself e verie outragiouslie, plaieng his parts like a 
divell indeed, so that the parishioners were put in a marvellous 
great fright. At that same instant, there chanced such a tempest 
of wind, thunder, and lightning, that the highest part of the 
roofe of that church was blowen downe and the chancell was all 
to shaken, rent, and torne in peeces." 43c At another time S,t. 
Dunstan, in attendance upon Kiing Edmund, was riding beside 
another nobleman, when "behold suddenlie Dunstan saw in the 
waie before him, where the kings musicians rode, the divell run- 
ning and leaping amongst the same musicians after a rejoising 

rnaner in likenesse of a little short evill favoured Aethi- 

opian". Banished for a time by the saint's crossing himself, he, 

48c Hoi. III. 20. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 87 

"or some other" is on hand again for supper, walking "up and 
downe amongst them that waited at the table". As usual his 
presence portends misfortune. Within three days the king is 
slain. 434 

The devil also appears occasionally as the Incubus or demon 
lover. These beings seem particularly susceptible to the ban- 
ning of the priests, and are especially picturesque in their man- 
ner of disappearing. One of them found in the chamber of "a 

yoong gentlewoman of excellent beautie making a verie sore 

and terrible roaring noise, flue his waies, taking the roofe of 
the chamber awaie with him, the hangings and coverings of 
the bed being also burnt therewith". 436 Another haunting a 
woman on shipboard, and incidentally raising "a woonderful 
great tempest of wind and weather, so outragious, that the niais- 
ter of the ship with other the mariners woondered not a little 
what the matter ment, to see such weather at that time of the 
yeere, for it was about the middest of summer", upon the adjura- 
tions of a priest "issued foorth of the pumpe of the ship a foule 
and evill favored blacke cloud, with a mightie terrible noise, 
flame, smoke and stinke, which presentlie fell into the sea. And 
suddenlie therupon the tempest ceassed, and the ship passing in 
great quiet the residue of hir journie, arrived in safetie at the 
place whither she was bound." 44 We read also of "a yoong man 

verie f aire & comelie of shape, who declared by waie of 

complaint unto the bishop how there was a spirit which 

haunted him in shape of a woman, so faire and beautiful a thing, 
that he never saw the like, the which would come into his cham- 
ber at nights, and with pleasant intisements allure him & 

>that by no maner of means he could be rid of hir". It is in- 
teresting to note that the wise Bishop sent him off traveling 
quite as a modern doctor would have done, and that "within a 
few daies [he] was delivered from further temptation". 44 * 

48d Hol. I. 690-1. 

486 Hoi. V. 147. 

"Hoi. V. 146-7. 

Ma Hol. V. 147. 



88 Fishe 

I can find only one instance in Holinshed of the manifesta- 
tion of the devil in propria persona, but this is sufficiently gro- 
tesque. At one time St. Dunstan, kneeling at his devotions, hears 
him "in the west end of the church, taking up a great laughter 
after his roring maner as though he should show himselfe glad 
and joifull at Dunstanes going into exile". 44 " 

The drama serves to supplement interestingly Holinshed's 
beliefs concerning the devil. Turning to it we find the gro- 
tesque figure we have just noted in the chronicle-story leaping 
and dancing through the Miracle Plays, his demoniacal laugh- 
ter greeting us again in the traditional, familiar "Ho ! Ho ! 
Ho!" as in Jonson's "The Devil is an Ass". Pushed out from 
the religious drama by the Vice, he has yet an honorable career 
to run on the secular stage, where he appears in a picturesque 
variety of shapes, from that of the chief himself to "fellows of 
a handful high," who in Dekker's "The Merry Devil of Edmon- 
ton", slip "into the cloisters where the nuns frequent" to "make 
them skip like does about the dale"; and who on one occasion, 
in Dekker's "If This be not a Good Play the Devil is in It," 
gleefully display, as specimens of their handiwork, "four butch- 
ers' souls puffed quaintly up with pricks", infernal sweetbreads, 
we axe informed. 

In Cored, in "The Merry Devil of Edmonton", we have a 
definite suggestion of the portentous appearance of the familiar 
spirit of a magician, as opposed to the insignificant rats, mice, 
and weasels of the village witch, — a suggestion entirely denied 
us by the Chronicler. "Why comest thou in this stern and 
horrid shape?" cries Fabell when Cored appears at midnight in 
the magician's study, while "the lights burn dim af righted at. . . . 
[his] presence." We learn from Eeginald Scot's "Discovery of 
Witchcraft" that "Cored knoweth the force of herbs and precious 
stones and maketh all birds fly before the exorcist, and to tarry 
with him as if they were tame, and that they shall eat and 
sing as their manner is." Unfortunately we cannot find from 
Scot what manner of apparition it was that so terrified Fabell; 

44b Hol. I. 693. 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 89 

but it must have been very horrid, since of this demon only, 
in his long list of descriptions, is Scot moved to resort to aster- 
isks. Fortunately he gives us more detailed accounts of other 
devils that serve magicians. We learn from him that Andras 
appeared in "an angel shape with a head like a black raven"; 
Flauros, "as a terrible strong leopard with fiery eyes" ; Zagan, 
like a "bull with griffin's wings". Often, however, they came 
in more pleasing shapes, like Cairn who presented himself in 
the form of a thrush, and Vepar who came like a mermaid. 

The drama in this connection, then, serves to supplement 
the Chronicle by giving us information concerning the familiar 
spirits of magicians. Beyond this, it is chiefly interesting as 
furnishing various idealizations of the notions contained in 
Holinshed. The characterless little animals, cats or vermin, 
with whom we became acquainted in the Chronicle as the fam- 
iliar spirits of witches, have, in the drama, become transformed 
into vivid little dogs, as in "The Witch of Edmonton," or ex- 
quisite sprites like Ben Jonson's Puck-Hairy in "The Sad Shep- 
herd". The famiiar spirit of the magician, commonplace 
enough in "The Merry Devil of Edmonton" and ignored in the 
Chronicle, appears in "Dr. Faustus" as the grand and melan- 
choly Mephistopheles. The friar who, in the Chronicle, created 
such commotion during the church-services has his counterpart 
in the drama in the irresistible figure of Friar Rush in "If This 
be not a Good Play the Devil is in It". He succeeds with equal 
effectiveness in breaking up the order of an English monastery 
by such diabolical ingenuity as that which prompted him, be- 
fore their frugal meal of herbs and water, to thank heaven 

"For our bread, wine, ale and beer, 

For the piping hot meats here, 

For broths of sundry tastes and sort, 

For beef, veal, mutton, lamb and pork, 

Green-sauce with calves head and bacon, 

Pig and goose and cramd-up capon; 

For paste raised stiff with curious art, 

Pie, custard, florentine and tart, 



90 Fishe 

Baked rumps, fried kidneys, and lam-stones, 
Fat sweetbreads, luscious maribones, 
Artichoke, and oyster pies, 
Buttered crab, prawns, lobsters' thighs : 
Thanks be given for flesh and fishes, 
With this choice of tempting dishes." 
The motive of the Incubus or demon-lover, so effective in 
the Chronicle, receives in the drama singularly weak treat- 
ment. It occurs, so far as I know, three times: once in "Grim, 
the Collier of Croyden", where Belphegor, as Incubus, is ex- 
tremely stupid; next in "A Mad World, My Masters", where he 
comes in the form of a beautiful woman, and is interesting only 
when he disappears with a vicious stamp, presumably roaring; 
and also, I understand, in a play called "A New Trick to 
Cheat the Devil" of which I can get no trace. Consider- 
ing eminently dramatic possibilities of this figure as apparent 
in our old ballads, in German drama, and in the recent suc- 
cessful representation of it on our own stage, it seems curious 
that in the sixteenth century he should prove such a failure. 
It is also very strange, in this connection, that our favorite 
English fairy, Eobin Goodfellow, whose diabolical origin was so 
generally accepted, should be quite ignored by Holinshed. How 
firmly, under this aspect, he was established in popular tradi- 
tion, is evidenced by the grave statements made by Keginald Scot 
(1584), by Burton in his "Anatomy of Melancholy", and by the 
circumstantial account given by John Brand, a traveller, who 
in 1703 tells us in good faith of Brownies in the Shetland 
Islands who served any family who gave them "a sacrifice of 
milk for his service; as when they churned their milk, they 
took a part thereof and sprinkled a corner of the hearth for 
Brownie's use; likewise, when they brewed, they had a stone 
called "Brownie's stone", wherein there was a little hole into 
which they poured some wort for a sacrifice to Brownie". 45 The 
evil propensities of this little gnome are evidenced by the fact 

46 «£ jj ew Description of Orkney & Zetland." John Brand, Edin- 
burh, 1703, p. 112; quoted in Folk Lore, vol. 18, p. 440. 



I 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 91 

that he deserted the service of a good old man "who, when 
young, used to brew and sometimes read upon his Bible", which 
"was Brownie's eyesore, and object of his wrath". The drama 
by no means neglects this attractive little goblin. It is inter- 
esting to notice in regard to the play lately referred to, "Grim, 
the Collier of Croyden", that its dreary incubus Belphegor is 
almost atoned for by his piquant little demon-servant, whom 
we see issuing from the very mouth of hell, whose name is 
Akercock, and who, once on earth, assumes the shape of Eobin 
Goodfellow. This treatment of him reflects charmingly the 
well-rooted idea of his diabolical origin. Akercock, alias Robin, 
appeared to be a devil of peculiarly simple taste, who has been 
to earth before and knows the lie of the land. After loitering 
about uneasily with his master among the lords and ladies, a 
prey perhaps to goblin-dyspepsia amidst their dainty fare, he 
is off to the beloved countryside where he is sure of plenty of 
curds and cream. His speech of final rebellion is charming. 

"These silken girls are all too fine for me: 

My master shall report of those in hell, 

Whilst I go range amongst the country-maids, 

To see if homespun lasses milder be 

Than my curs'd dame 

I'll fright the country-people as they pass; 

And sometimes turn me to some other form, 

And so delude them with fantastic showk. 

But woe betide the silly dairy-maids, 

For I shall fleet their cream-bowls night by night, 

And slice the bacon-flitches as they hang. 

Well, here in Croyden will I first begin 

To frolic it among the country lobs." 
One notes here that the cream is not dutifully set out on 
the hearth for him, but that he "fleets it" at his pleasure. This 
is significant taken in the light of Grim's exclamation when he 
sees him. He is not yet established there as an expected guest 
who, it is to be hoped, will lend a helping hand when work 
presses. He is an evil spirit pressing in from the moors, a 



92 Fislce 

tiny Grendel, whom the startled friend at Joan's fireside greets 
with the exclamtion, "0 Lord save us, sure he is some country- 
devil ! He hath got a russet coat upon his face". 

We may note in passing that Eobin Goodfellow, wholly re- 
formed, appears in the inimitable Puck of "A Midsummer 
Night's Dream", who combines the fairy charm of Jonson's 
Puck-Hairy in "The Sad Shepherd" with the homeliness of the 
goblin in "Grim" ; who one moment "puts a girdle round about 
the earth", and the next is sent "with broom before, to sweep 
the dust behind the door". 

This chapter, it seems to me, illustrates more strikingly 
than any other the slavery of our Chronicler to tradition, a 
slavery shown by his merciless arraignment of an unjustly per- 
secuted class composed for the most part of the wretched and 
helpless in the community; and by his adherence to the most 
grotesque of mediaeval superstitions concerning the embodiment 
and functions of evil spirits. 

Conclusion. 

So far, then, we have been able to trace in Holinshed's Chron- 
icle the action of a spirit practically uninfluenced by the fuller 
light which, in the evolution of the human intellect, was tend- 
ing more and more to render possible the solution of perennial 
problems. In his racial provincialism, proof against the floods 
of information concerning new lands and new peoples pouring 
in upon England; in his belief in the antiquated doctrine of 
the Divine Eight of Kings, a doctrine held tenaciously in the 
face of the enlightened policy of the Tudors who knew above 
all things when to yield; in his contempt for the mass of the 
people daily growing, nevertheless, before his eyes, into greater 
power and self-consciousness; in his constant indulgence in 
traditional gibes against women, despite the vigorous flowering 
in various directions of the feminine intellect of his day; in 
his adherence in matters of religion to superstitions which ad- 
vance in the physical sciences was tending to dispel; in his 



Conventionalism in Holinshed's Chronicle II 93 

habit of moralizing upon threadbare themes, unconscious of the 
presence of newer problems; in his utter ignorance of any such 
humane theories concerning witchcraft as were raising, on stage 
and in pulpit, impassioned advocates; in all this we recognize 
the workings of a mind enslaved by the traditions of the past. 
Yet all this marks but the limitation in the character of a good 
and efficient man, whose learning and industry win infinite re- 
spect, whose monumental work has been of incalculable service 
to both playwright and historian. And it is with pleasure that 
I record my gratitude to him not only for his splendid service 
to scholarship and art, but also for the opportunity which the 
leisurely reading of him has afforded of catching in his mind, 
tranquil in the midst of an age so like our own in its restlessness 
and travail, a reflection of the spirit of former times when men 
rested, as on a rock, on long established beliefs and traditions, 
working with conviction and sleeping in peace, untroubled by 
doubt or question or agony of mental conflict. 



r 



MOSUL* C0 ^REss 







